Umar Bulama lay among the many corpses, hoping that Boko Haram fighters would mistake him for one of many useless after a brutal assault on a northern Nigerian city.
Urgent his face “into the blood-soaked sand”, Bulama, 34, was fortunate: he survived the September 5 assault on the northeastern city of Darul Jamal close to the Cameroonian border.
The city was principally deserted after a Boko Haram assault a few decade in the past and folks like Bulama had solely began returning earlier this yr, as the federal government strikes to shut down displaced individuals camps.
However the night time raid, wherein the attackers torched houses, was a stark reminder that large swathes of rural Nigeria are nonetheless exterior authorities management, with authorities saying not less than 63 had been killed — and native sources placing the toll round 90.
Finally, Bulama, who sells firewood for a residing, walked for hours till he reached a army checkpoint close to the city of Banki.
“I escaped… however I left my neighbours behind perpetually,” he mentioned.
– Resettlement questioned –
Aisha Umar, 70, thought returning to Darul Jamal can be her last transfer in life. As an alternative, she watched Boko Haram fighters drag away her two sons through the assault.
Now staying with family in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State the place Boko Haram first rose up in 2009, she mentioned she felt betrayed.
“They informed us it was protected to return. Protected? Have a look at the graves.”
Although violence has waned since its peak between 2013 and 2015, Boko Haram and the offshoot Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) nonetheless maintain sway throughout swathes of Nigeria’s rural northeast.
The primary six months of this yr noticed a resurgence of assaults, notably from ISWAP, with the group overrunning not less than 17 army bases, in keeping with a tally by Good Governance Africa.
“The sky was crimson with flames,” Ali Mustapha, a 42-year-old shopkeeper, informed AFP. “Bullets had been flying, youngsters had been crying. I grabbed my daughter’s hand and ran via the smoke.”
His spouse didn’t survive.
“I buried her with my very own palms,” he mentioned. “That’s the final present I might give her.”
– ‘Ghost city’ as soon as once more –
Nigerian authorities are sometimes tight-lipped about safety failures, although Borno Governor Babagana Zulum travelled to Darul Jamal the day after the assault, telling reporters not less than 63 individuals had been killed.
Mommodu Isa, a neighborhood pro-government militia commander, informed AFP three days after the assault “we counted not less than 85 corpses”, warning that the toll might be larger as “many residents fled into the bush”.
Habiba Yusuf, an support employee for Mon Membership Worldwide who travelled to Darul Jamal, and Maryam Mamman Nur, a nurse in Banki, supplied related figures.
A spokesman for Nigeria’s Nationwide Emergency Administration Company operations in Borno referred AFP to the preliminary toll of 63.
Some have warned the bloodbath might unravel the delicate IDP resettlement course of — which critics say was already shifting too shortly, sending individuals again to areas that the federal government has little or incomplete management over.
The camp closures have come as NGOs have pulled again, leaving the federal government to shoulder extra of the burden for operating the camps.
“This assault has undone years of progress,” Yusuf mentioned.
“Darul Jamal is as soon as once more a ghost city.”
