Boko Haram Kills 31 Fishermen In Borno

No fewer than 31 fishermen have been killed by Boko Haram terrorrists in two separate attacks on islands in Lake Chad in northeastern Nigeria.

Fishermen and vigilantes fighting the Islamists, who revealed this to AFP on Monday said the sect stormed the fishing islands of Duguri and Dabar Wanzam in the freshwater lake on Saturday, attacking fishermen working in the area and shooting and hacking their victims.

“Boko Haram attacked Duguri and Dabar Wanzam islands and killed 31 people,” a member of a local militia fighting the jihadists in Maiduguri, Babakura Kolo told AFP.

“They (Boko Haram) killed 14 in Duguri and another 17 in Dabar Wanzam,” Kolo added.

Another vigilante, Musa Ari, giving his own account said the fishermen had returned to the fishing hub of Baga on the lake’s shores days earlier and had paddled out to the two islands in wooden canoes on Friday, looking for fish when the incident happened.

Fisherman Sallau Inuwa said the Boko Haram jihadists first attacked Duguri Island where they killed 12 fishermen and injured two others who later died.

“The attackers split into two groups. While the first attacked Duguri the second went to nearby Dabar Wanzam where they laid in wait for those who fled the attack in Duguri. They killed 17 in Dabar Wanzam,” Inuwa told AFP.

It was learnt that the attackers spared one fisherman in Duguri and loaded the 12 bodies of the men they killed in a canoe and ordered him to take them to Baga as a warning that no one should fish in the lake.

“They told the man they spared to inform the troops in Baga that they were waiting for them on the islands,” another fisherman Dauda Tukur said.

The incident comes one week after the military lifted a two-year ban on fishing in the freshwater lake that straddles Nigeria, Niger, Cameroon and Chad.