B’Haram kills 20 in fresh Borno attacks

There seems to be no end in sight to the Boko
Haram insurgency as some men believed to be
members of the sect waylaid traders returning
from a local market in Borno killing 18 of
them.
Also, a senior officer of the Department of
State Security said that some hours earlier,
another set of gunmen had attacked Sabon-
Kasuawa in Hawul Local Government Area of
the state and killed the village head and one
of his guards.
It was gathered that the sect attacked two
buses on the Bama-Gwoza Road; and shot
dead 18 traders who were returning from a
market at Pulka on Tuesday at about 4pm.
Pulka is Nigerian border town with Cameroon;
and 119 kilometres south of Maiduguri, the
capital of troubled Borno state.
The marauders, according to an eyewitness,
Hamba Tada, ambushed the traders, who were
going back to their homes after selling their
wares, at Wala village, 10 kilometres to
Gwoza.
The witness said the traders were compelled
to come down from the two buses; and
subsequently asked to identify themselves by
insurgents.
Tada narrated that, "the insurgents asked the
traders to identify themselves first, before the
drivers are allowed to proceed on the
barricaded road; and when you identify
yourself as a Gwoza resident, the gunmen
shoot and kill the person."
He lamented that, "Unfortunately, all the
occupants of the two buses are residents of
the town, and that was how the traders were
shot and killed."
He however claimed that, "non-residents of
Gwoza, on that road, after the insurgents
mounted a road block at Wala, were allowed
free passage, without being killed."
He explained that the selective killings at the
village might have been as a result of the
sect's belief that the people of Gwoza town
provided information to the military and
other security agencies which led to a
clampdown on the sect that led to the arrest
of one of their commanders last month.
He claimed that the Bama-Gwoza Road was
not well patrolled by security agencies,
stressing that, 'We sighted about two patrol
vehicles last Sunday in the evening towards
the Sambisa Forest, but the following day,
Monday; no military or police vehicle passed
through this road to protect us from the
activities of the insurgents. The absence of
soldiers on this road enabled the gunmen to
strike easily and kill."
He lamented that, "After perpetrating their
heinous crimes, the gunmen fled to the
Mandara Mountain and Sambisa Forest; and
then returned to this road to ambush and kill
innocent people," insisting that"the insurgents
know these terrains better than the military
and it is easy for them to perpetrate terrorist
activities in the Bama-Gwoza axis."
A senior police officer who does not want his
name in print, said besides the Chibok
abduction of 100 female students, 18 people
were feared dead at a village in Gwoza Local
Government Area.
He disclosed that the traders were returning
from a border town market of Pulka, when
the insurgents laid ambush on the road and
slew over a dozen travelers from two buses.