Female suicide bomber blew herself up killing 20 at popular Maiduguri poultry market in Borno state

A female suicide bomber said to be about 10 years old blew herself up killing at least 10 others at the popular Maiduguri poultry market in Borno state around 12.30pm today.The Borno Police Command on Saturday confirmed the killing of 20 persons after a suicide bomb attack at the popular Monday Market in Maiduguri.

Mr Gideon Jubrin, the police spokesman, gave the figure while speaking with newsmen in Maiduguri.

According to Jubrin, 18 persons sustained various degrees of injury in the blast which occurred at the Yen-Kaji section of the market, where live chickens are sold.

“Casualty figure is 20 and 18 injured, including the female suicide bomber that detonated the Improvised Explosive Device.“ A military source who confirmed the explosion said the little girl strapped herself with explosives that were so heavy that after it exploded, flung her body 500m away from the scene

"Her body was completely shattered,” he said. “Because of the high calibre explosive she strapped to her body, the upper part of her body was flung apart and found about 500 metres away"he said

On Friday, Amnesty International released a report about a recent series of attacks by Boko Haram that killed hundreds, if not thousands of people in Nigeria. According to Daniel Eyre, the author of the Amnesty report, the terror groups raids on Baga, a border town near Chad, may constitute the group's "deadliest act" yet:

If reports that the town was largely razed to the ground and that hundreds or even as many as 2,000 civilians were killed are true, this marks a disturbing and bloody escalation of Boko Haram’s ongoing onslaught against the civilian population.

Additional remarks from survivors on the ground in Nigeria were no less chilling. "Too many to count," the Associated Press wrote of the bodies, adding that a district official "said most victims are children, women and elderly people who could not run fast enough when insurgents drove into Baga."
Other reports added that Boko Haram is thought to have "wiped out" another 16 towns outside of Baga, which the group reportedly emptied of its 10,000 residents. "A large number reportedly drowned as they crossed Lake Chad," the BBC relayed.
Following its takeover of Baga last week, Boko Haram has launched fresh attacks that have killed dozens, Reuters noted, adding that "the insurgency killed more than 10,000 people last year, according to a count by the Council on Foreign Relations in November." The raids coincide with the launching of Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan's campaign. Jonathan, who faces reelection on February 14, has been criticized for his handling of the Boko Haram offensive.
"Nobody has been held accountable for the murder of anybody."

That nearly a week later we're hearing the vague details of an attack that possibly killed thousands speaks to the challenge of getting reliable information about the ongoing crisis in Nigeria. While the chaos has been wrought in large part by Boko Haram, which aims to establish an Islamic state in Africa and has infamously kidnapped countless girls seeking education, some of the other violence stems from long-standing sectarian tensions within the country.

"Herdsmen who are Fulani, who are Muslim, are fighting with farmers who are Christian, who are Berom," John Campbell, the former American ambassador to Nigeria, told The Atlantic last year.

He added that in addition to the difficulties of tracking the number of casualties, the quest to bring people to justice is even more arduous. "There is virtually no judicial process involved in this at all. Nobody has been held accountable for the murder of anybody."

 

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At least 30,000 villagers now find themselves without homes, and many have fled to the capital of the Borno state, Maiduguri City, after the attacks. Over 7,000 refugees have escaped to Chad, and other residents have fled to Cameroon.
The most recent slaughtering by Boko Haram militants coincided with the start of President Goodluck Jonathan’s reelection campaign, which took place in the city of Lagos as thousands flocked to the streets and participated in the political rally. The presidential and government elections are scheduled to be held on February 14, and violence is predicted to escalate as election day approaches.
Boko Haram members are part of a radical Islamist group who do not believe in elections and the principle of democracy. The recent attacks will undoubtedly strike fear in many voters and potentially result in low voter turnout during the upcoming elections or even a complete close to voting in the northern region of Nigeria. The country’s national election commission, however, is determined not to postpone the elections despite the mounting attacks by Boko Haram militants.

Find the military press statement below

Troops are on mopping up operation around Damaturu after successfully foiling and containing the terrorists attempt to occupy parts of the town. The terrorists had launched massive attack from different directions of the town on Friday evening, but troops were promptly mobilized to repel the attack that lasted the night resulting in heavy casualty on the terrorists before the rest of them retreated. Weapons including IEDs and Rocket Propelled Grenades captured from the terrorists are being compiled while their dead as well as civilian casualties are yet to be determined.

Pursuit of the fleeing terrorists is also ongoing while the 5 soldiers who were seriously wounded in the attack are being treated in the military medical facility. Although normalcy has been restored, the town is also being reinforced with more troops. More details later.
Meanwhile the situation in Baga is still being studied to determine the appropriate action that will restore law, order and normalcy to the community after the attack mounted by hundreds of heavily armed terrorists last weekend. A total of 14 soldiers were killed in action during the attack, while over 30 who were wounded are now receiving medical attention. Most of those declared missing in action have also rejoined their unit in the ongoing reorganization for further operations.
Although several of the terrorists died in the course of the attack and efforts at repelling the assailants, the actual figure of civilian casualties is yet to be creditably determined as is being propagated in certain quarters.

The Nigerian military has not given up on Baga and other localities where terrorists activities are now prevalent. Appropriate plans, men and resources are presently being mobilized to address the situation. The Nigerian component of the Multinational Joint Task Force which retreated from its Baga Headquarters last weekend and more of the troops are regrouping for necessary debrief and briefing for subsequent missions.

It is necessary to reassure Nigerians that the Nigerian Armed Forces and security agencies are capable of flushing out the terrorists from Baga and all parts of the nation’s territory where their activities are prevalent. No portion of Nigeria’s territory has been or will be conceded to terrorists.
The use of all available resources within the armed forces will continue to be maximized to sustain the tempo of the counter terrorism campaign towards containing and eradicating terrorism in the nation’s territory. The support and understanding of all partners and neighboring countries will however continue to be utilized where available and relevant in the conduct of the mission and in line with existing agreement and understanding.
One of Africa's most senior church leaders has accused the West of ignoring the threat of the militant Islamist group Boko Haram, days after the reported slaughter of up to 2000 people by the group.
Ignatius Kaigama, the Catholic Archbishop of Jos and president of the Nigerian Bishops Conference, spoke as bodies lay strewn on the ground in Baga, in north-east Nigeria, after a surge by Boko Haram fighters who took over the border town earlier this month.
He highlighted the stark difference between the West's willingness to act when 17 people were killed by militants in France and the approach to the slaughter in Africa.
Estimates of the death toll in Baga and surrounding villages, which were razed by fire, have been put at up to 2000.

Most of the dead were women, children and the elderly who could not flee in time, said Amnesty International, which labelled it the group's deadliest massacre yet.
A further 30,000 people are thought to have fled their homes, 7,500 seeking sanctuary in Chad and the rest adding to Nigeria's tens of thousands of displaced people.
Archbishop Kaigama told The Independent on Sunday that while the Nigerian government was "dilly dallying" and needed to improve its effectiveness against Boko Haram, the West must also act before the militants' power grew to stretch far beyond Nigeria's borders.
The government's military response to Boko Haram's advance in the north has been described as chaotic and ineffective. Soldiers often claim their allowances aren't paid and there are repeated reports of desertion and mutiny, weakening the army's ability to take on a well-organised and determined foe.
President Goodluck Jonathan has promised to re-equip the army to improve its effectiveness and there are hopes that after the election in February there will be the political will necessary to support the military against the Islamist fighters. However, Boko Haram, which regards democracy as blasphemous, is expected to do all it can to disrupt the elections.
But Archbishop Kaigama said the West should recognise that the problem is not simply a Nigerian one.
"I can smell a lot more trouble. It's not going to be confined to this region. It's going to expand. It will get to Europe and elsewhere," he warned.
"When it comes to the international community, they express their solidarity but it isn't really concrete help. We have always said that there should be concern expressed more concretely by the West beyond just expressing their solidarity. They should do more than that," he said.
"We believe there is a lot we can share in terms of security information. I would have thought by now they would be able to help Nigeria. There has to be a concrete collaboration between Europe and America to bring this to an end."
He added: "Compare what has happened in Paris and what is happening here. There is a great difference.
The British Government has in recent months announced a new package of help for Nigeria, including intelligence and training advice, to fight the militants. A spokeswoman for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office said: "Boko Haram deliberately targets the weak and vulnerable, causing suffering in communities of different faiths and ethnicities. They must be stopped. The UK - with France and the US - has taken an active role in supporting Nigeria to tackle Boko Haram."
For the Archbishop, this hasn't been enough.
"We were hoping by now that we would be talking about successes in confronting this militant Islamic group but they are causing more destruction and capturing more villages and killing innocent people. It's quite disturbing.
"I believe that Boko Haram and their allies want to cause more harm, more destruction. We are just hoping a remedy can be found and this terrible situation be brought to an end," he said.
The gulf in the attention between the murders in France and the Nigerian massacre was highlighted Twitter messages yesterday.
Imad Mesdoua, a political analyst at consultants Africa Matters, tweeted: "No breaking news cycle, no live reports, no international outrage, no hashtags." The actress Mia Farrow and Stephanie Hancock, of Human Rights Watch, were among those to observe that there had been "no outrage or headlines" about the Nigerian slaughter.
Harry Leslie Smith, the 91-year-old who electrified the Labour Party conference last year with a speech on the NHS, said on Twitter: "Note to the media and Western politicians that Paris isn't burning but Nigeria is."
Nigeria wasn't the only tragedy that fell by the wayside in last week's news cycle. On the same day that 12 people were killed in the attack on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris, at least 37 died and 66 were injured in an al-Qaeda bomb blast in Yemen that went virtually unnoticed by the international community.
The difference in reaction to Nigeria and other tragedies was, a spokeswoman for the Catholic aid organisation Cafod suggested, "about the value of a life - an African life versus a European life".
Concerns about the international response to Boko Haram, the group which infamously kidnapped more than 200 schoolgirls in a single raid last year, were raised as further details emerged about the massacre in and around Baga, on the shores of Lake Chad.
One of the survivors of the slaughter told of how he escaped to the city of Maiduguri, 100 miles away, after hiding for three days in a gap between two houses. Yanaye Grema was part of a group of locals who had banded together to try to defend their homes from the Boko Haram advance but were overwhelmed.
"People fled into the bush while some shut themselves indoors," he told AFP. "The gunmen pursued fleeing residents into the bush, shooting them dead.
"All I could hear were ceaseless gunshots, explosions, screams from people and chants of Allahu Akbar [God is greatest] from the Boko Haram gunmen. At night I could see lights from the power generator they ran. I could also hear their cheering and laughter.
"On Tuesday they began looting the market and every home in the town. They set fire to the market and began burning homes. I decided it was time I leave before they turned in my direction."
After emerging from his hiding place he decided to escape the area on foot, and witnessed the horrific extent of the bloodbath by victorious militants.
"For five kilometres, I kept stepping on dead bodies until I reached Malam Karanti village, which was also deserted and burnt," he said.
Muhammadu Buhari, the former military ruler of Nigeria and Mr Jonathan's challenger in next month's presidential election, said more soldiers need to be deployed against Boko Haram.
"I have made this comment before and the federal government refused to react to it," he said.
"The number of soldiers, policemen and officers of the State Security Services they deploy during elections, if they had deployed them to Borno and Yobe states to fight Boko Haram, by now, Boko Haram would have been history."
There was further carnage yesterday when a female suicide bomber, who according to one report was aged just 10, detonated explosives at a market in Maiduguri, a city of more than one million.
The authorities said a Boko Haram attack on Damatu, 80 miles west of Maiduguri, was repulsed after a robust response, including air strikes, from the military.

After days of razing villages and massacres, Boko Haram finished the week with its most chilling atrocity.
As shoppers bustled through the market in the Nigerian city of Maiduguri, a device worn by a 10-year-old girl exploded near the entrance. A witness said the child probably had no idea that a bomb had been strapped to her body.
The explosion just before lunch killed 20 including the girl and injured 18, according to the police.
Boko Haram did not claim responsibility for the attack immediately, but the Islamist insurgents have increasingly used girls as human bombs as they carve an African "Caliphate" from the plains of northern Nigeria.

Boko Haram controls about 51,800sq km of territory, an area the size of Belgium. Within this domain, the black flag of jihad flies over scores of towns and villages scattered across the neighbouring states of Borno and Yobe.
The latest conquest was the fishing town of Baga on the shores of Lake Chad, which fell to the Islamists last Thursday.
"For 5km, I kept stepping on dead bodies until I reached Malam Karanti village, which was also deserted and burnt," said fisherman Yanaye Grema.
Boko Haram's fighters have control over 11 local government areas with a total population exceeding 1.7 million.
Its realm stretches from the Mandara Mountains on the eastern border with Cameroon to Lake Chad in the north and the Yedseram river in the west.
The Nigerian army, crippled by corruption and incompetence, has shown itself unable to resist the jihadist advance.
Last September, Abubakar Shekau, the self-styled "Emir" of Boko Haram, proclaimed his ambition to conquer a "Caliphate" and follow the example of Isis (Islamic State).
"There is a copycat element at work here," said Andrew Pocock, the British High Commissioner to Nigeria. "If Isis can declare a Caliphate, then so can we."
There is also a clear practical rationale for Boko Haram to capture territory. "Success, and they have had success, creates a different kind of requirement," said Pocock. "You need a place where you can base yourself and keep equipment and supplies and, indeed, captives. It means that you've got to hold territory."
Shekau has established Boko Haram's unofficial headquarters in the town of Gwoza in Borno. Gwoza is shielded from attack by the volcanic peaks of the Mandara Mountains spanning the nearby frontier with Cameroon. The surrounding area is the homeland of Shekau's ethnic group, the Kanuri.
From this base, Shekau sends his fighters to strike across a vast area. The border with Cameroon means nothing to Shekau, since it slices through the area inhabited by the Kanuri. His men have frequently attacked villages in the neighbouring country, killing 68 of Cameroon's soldiers in the last month alone.
Sometimes, Shekau's goal is to grab more territory, as with the assault on Baga last week. Just as often, he dispatches his fighters on what can only be described as slave raids.
Boko Haram profits greatly from the trade in human beings. Last April, Shekau committed his most infamous act by abducting more than 200 schoolgirls from the town of Chibok, about 80km south-west of Gwoza, triggering a global campaign to "bring back our girls".
By his own admission, the girls were then sold into slavery.
Britain and France stamped out the slave trade in this part of Africa a century ago, but Boko Haram has succeeded in partially reversing this achievement. Today the old caravan routes running north across the Sahara are active again, except that trucks have replaced camels as the means of conveying human cargo.
Boko Haram's name is normally translated as "Western education is banned", yet "boko" means "book" in the Hausa language, so "books are banned" would be more accurate.
In part, Boko Haram is a branch of al-Qaeda's brand of jihadism. As well as seizing towns, Shekau's men carry out suicide bombings in Nigerian cities, including Abuja. Like the Taleban in Afghanistan and Isis in Iraq, they have become expert users of improvised explosive devices. In particular, they have mastered the technique of creating charges that are carefully shaped to destroy armoured vehicles.
In short, Boko Haram have learnt the classic tactics of al-Qaeda.
Yet at the same time, Boko Haram is a Kanuri tribal insurgency. In addition, the movement works as a criminal gang, profiting from theft, extortion and slave raiding. Shekau amounts to a global jihadist, crime boss and tribal rebel leader all at the same time.
If there are limits to his ambitions, they have not been imposed by the Nigerian army. The 7th division was specially created to fight Boko Haram and deployed to Borno. In practice, it does little but try to mount a static defence of Maiduguri, the state capital. In common with the rest of the army, it lacks the mobility and the manpower to challenge Boko Haram's control of the surrounding area. The army may also lack the resolve. Last year, the federal Government allocated 20 per cent of its budget to the armed forces -- more than �4 billion.
Yet precious little trickled down to the soldiers on the front line, who remain poorly armed and equipped. Instead, a large proportion of the military budget simply disappeared into the pockets of senior officers.
Oliver Dashe Doeme, the Roman Catholic bishop of Maiduguri, said that 70 of the 150 churches in his diocese had been destroyed by Boko Haram.
"We have many parishes which have been sacked and overrun. Our major concern is not our buildings but our people who have been driven away from their homes. Some are living in mountains and forests, some are in Cameroon and some have gone elsewhere in Nigeria."
About 10,000 Catholic refugees have gathered in Maiduguri after fleeing Boko Haram's new domain, added Bishop Doeme.
President Goodluck Jonathan, who faces re-election next month, has declared an emergency in the three states most threatened by the Islamists. But Bishop Doeme has no confidence in the army's ability to recapture the lost territory.
"Our main problem is not that Boko Haram cannot be contained, but that you have a deep-seated corruption in high and low places," he said.
"Many of our top military officers are gaining from what is happening here because it means that a lot of money is coming in their direction."
Boko Haram's state
Leader: Abubakar Shekau
The group: Wages Islamic jihad
Known for: Seizing towns, carrying out suicide bombings and using improvised explosive devices
Headquarters: Gwoza in Borno state
Territory: 51,800sq km of 11 local government areas
Population: 2 million people.