Baga Massacre: Tributes To The Late Defenseless Town Of Baga (part two), By Usama Dandare

By Usama Dandare
In what may appear to be the deadliest
attack by the satanic sect Boko Haram
since 2009 when the violent group began
massive destruction against the Nigerian
states, it isn’t any longer news that the
latest attack on Baga and Doron Baga
towns of Borno state on the 3rd day of
January 2015 left not fewer than 2000
(two thousand) lives dead and about
three thousand others sustained various
degrees of injuries while the entire
towns were washed off the face of the
earth in less than 24 hours.
Tragedy of this nature isn’t something
new to occupants of the northeastern
troubled region where thousands lives
have been taken away in cold blood and
still counting, thousands were brutally
injured or taken for ransom with more
than halve of their territory under
terrorist captivity, while perhaps more
than four million were forced to flee
and turned refugees in their own land,
thousands others fled into nearby
countries like Chad, Cameroon and Niger
Republic with little or no means of
livelihood.
They have been experiencing similar
atrocities over the years, the April 19,
2013 mayhem unleashed by men of the
Nigerian Army on the same Baga still
remain fresh in our memories, soldiers
belonging to Nigeria Military stormed
Baga on a Friday evening in search of
terrorist suspected to be hidden in the
town, the soldiers were too
unprofessional by failing to specify their
targets but instead, they opted for a
random fire which in turns claimed not
fewer than 184 innocent civilians and
razed to ashes over 2,000 houses.
Baga is located in the northeastern
region of Nigeria lying east to the town
of Kukawa, it is approximately 196km
from Maiduguri, the capital of Borno
State. The people of Baga were business
oriented with mostly farmers and
fishermen, and until the sudden death
of these towns, fish lovers will continue
to remember the “Doron Baga” fish
market which was located about six
kilometers from the town and used to lie
on the border of Lake Chad, it was a
fishing center itself in the 1960s and
1970s, but the diminishing size of the
lake has caused fishermen to move, and
others turned to subsistence farmers.
The twin Baga towns that sits on the
shores of Lake Chad and were famous
for their smoked fish has perished away
on January 3, 2015, the towns were
caught in the vortex of the latest attack
by the dreaded Boko Haram terrorist
sect. The ancient towns came under siege
on Fridaynight of 2nd January which
left in its wake deaths and destructions
of a monumental scale, and both towns
were wiped out of the map of Nigeria by
angry gunmen suspected to be members
of Boko Haram and the attack virtually
suppressed throughout the weekend.
Insurgents seized the far northeastern
town and began raiding nearby villages,
thus leading to the death thousands
civilians and set ablaze the entire
communities in what may be one of the
sect’s deadliest holocaust sprees since
the insurgency started more than five
years ago. Details of the violence are
coming out in places such as Maiduguri,
the Borno state capital and neighboring
countries, where thousands fled with at
least 7,000 more fleeing in the other
directions to Chad and Cameroon.
Due to scarcity of news sources from the
area because Boko Haram are in full
control there and communication lines
have been cut off, officials could not
provide an exact death toll but various
news media and both local and
international human right agencies put
death figures from hundreds to about
2,000, and more than 3,700 homes were
completely destroyed in a town of less
than 4,000 houses.
Reports released on January 7, 2015, by
Digital Globe and Amnesty International
shows an aerial shots of the two Baga
towns, which had been hit previously by
fighting, the pictures were shot a day
before Boko Haram moved in and a
second image taken four days later,
showing homes and businesses completely
razed down.
“These detailed images show devastation
of catastrophic proportions in two towns,
one of which was almost wiped off the
map in the space of four days,” More
than 3,700 structures were damaged or
completely destroyed: 620 in Baga and
more than 3,100 in Doron Baga,”
Amnesty International said. Local
officials have also said Baga and about
16 surrounding settlements were burnt
to the ground and at least 20,000 people
fled.
Medical charity Doctors Without Borders
also released another report saying its
team in the Borno state capital
Maiduguri had provided assistance to
5,000 survivors of the attack, while the
United Nations refugee agency said more
than 11,300 Nigerian refugees had fled
into neighbouring Chad. “About 300
women were said to have been rounded
up and detained at a school, witnesses
told Amnesty, adding that older women,
mothers and children were released
after four days but younger women
kept.” Amnesty International said.
Baga town was seized by Boko Haram
from Nigerian troops stationed at a
multinational military base in the area
and to make matters worst, soldiers
deployed to secure lives and recapture
the lost territory ran out of ammunition
and had to flee for their lives. The
insurgents later blocked all roads out of
town and then pursued residents and
fleeing soldiers into nearby bushes,
forcing thousands of residents to take
canoes to Lake Chad or swim across the
river with hundreds suffocating in the
waters.
The mayhem went on for days and
advanced to surrounding villages with
about seven other nearby villages also
attacked and torched, those fleeing
through the rivers were thought to had
escaped but unlucky for them, the
bloodthirsty terrorist had earlier blocked
all boat paths killing occupants of any
boat or canoe that came along. No one
was spared irrespective of age or
gender, hundreds of old women and
children were forced to walk through the
bush for several days before arriving
Maiduguri or Chad. Already, Borno have
been completely subdued and unless
something urgent is done, there is the
likelihood of outbreak of diseases as a
result of decomposing bodies of humans
and animals in the bushes.
In all these atrocities, the most saddest
and tearful was the brutal killing of a
woman as she was in labour during the
Baga massacre, insurgents stormed the
house where this poor mother was on the
verge of giving birth and they
indiscriminately shot at her while half
of her baby (boy) was out and she died
right away, leaving the remaining half
of the baby in her womb. What an
inhumanity!
Despite all these, what baffled me the
most is the continuous denial by Nigerian
government which is yet to officially
believe the re-occurrence of another
high magnitude massacre in the same
Baga that was almost made a history in
2013 by the government itself, this
denials further substantiates the
palpability that the Nigerian government
hasn’t sent any rescue team or any aid
mission to the remaining survivors that
were trapped in bushes and mountain
tops without food, drinking water and
other basic needs not to mention of
bringing the perpetrators to justice.
This unholy raid in Baga is only
calamitous but more serious and
inhuman manslaughters may be on the
cards, Boko Haram have again builds up
from this attack as they have just
added several dangerous armaments to
their armoury, they succeeded from this
latest attack in obtaining the most
sophisticated communication equipments
that the army flee and left behind in
the Baga multinational forces military
base. The communication gadgets were
said to be more superior than the
equipment at the 7 Division military
headquarter heading operations in the
troubled northeast, they have also
captured armored personnel carriers
and tanks with which i am optimistic will
be use in unleashing more mayhems on
the Nigerian states.
Insurgents in Nigeria has forcibly
conscripted hundreds of young men and
abducted hundreds of women and girls
in the past years, with the whereabouts
of thousands citizens still unaccounted
for and it’s widely believed that many
of the suicide bombings in recent days
were executed by young boys and girls
that were abducted by the insurgents.
Let’s not forget to remember the 276
school virgins that were kidnapped while
writing their final exams by the sect at
a government secondary school in Chibok
last April, 2014, the whereabouts of
these maidens is still unknown and it all
appeared like the federal government
had given up in the search to rescue
these girls, and about 400 others were
also taken away in different locations.
Considering the less-care attitudes
exhibited by both Nigerian government
and the international communities
toward fighting terrorism in this part of
the world, a deadly monstrous
conspiracy against the populace of
Nigeria, precisely those in the northern
parts cannot be dismissed. Hundreds of
thousands of innocent Nigerians have
died as a result of insurgency that
erupted in the northern region after the
killing of Boko Haram’s spiritual leader,
Mohammed Yusuf by men of the Nigerian
Police Force in July, 2009.
Since then, holocaust have been taking
place and those in the corridors of
power looks unperturbed while the
electorates are joining the comity of the
disenfranchised on a daily routine. The
poor masses are not safe wherever they
go and in whatever they are do, their
wealths are all gone, their friends and
relatives massacred and their
merchandise burnt. In fact, Nigerians in
the troubled north now have little or no
hope for a prosperous future again and
indeed, they have paid the price of
what is unknown to them with there
blood, wealth and personal effects,
even animals were not spared by
ravaging flames that burnt virtually
both living and non-living object it came
across.
It is undoubtedly that Baga has now
become part of an inglorious history of
the ongoing onslaught against the
innocent populace of northern Nigeria
that has consumed several towns and
villages in the last five years, killing at
least 200,000 lives with over a million
more injured and about 4-6 million
internally and externally displaced. If
Nigeria as a nation cannot win an
internal uprising, i wonder how possible
could it be for us to cope with invasion
from external forces?
The world, human right groups and all
agencies concern should note that there
is serious humanitarian crisis going on in
Baga and the northern region of Nigeria
at large, dead bodies are still in the
bush and there is apparent shortage of
food, water for survivors. There is also
no medication for the injured and no
effective plan to resettle the displaced.
It was like the end of the world for the
occupants of these towns and villages.
The lucky ones escaped by the whiskers
but not many were all that lucky,
especially women and children who ran
into the bush with gunshots wounds,
hundreds died from excessive bleeding
and only God knows how many dead
bodies are there decomposing in the
forests right now. The elderly and
children who could not flee died in their
thatched huts that were engulfed by
ravaging flames. What a calamity!
And until the Nigerian government rise
to tackle the rising menace of
unemployment among its teeming
youths, poverty among the populace and
corruption within the government, then
the country’s security challenges can
never be brought back to normal.
Nigerians are suffering in all aspect of
human and social life as a result of
weak leadership, coupled with the high
level of corruption in the government
which is increasingly inflating by the
day. Nigerian government have failed to
improve in all sectors of the economy,
putting the lives of it’s citizenry at
owner’s risk. And for it failure to
protect lives and properties of its
electorates, Nigeria as a nation has
demonstrated to the globe that it is a
failed state and see no wisdom why any
government should be left to keep on
truckin’ despite failing woefully to
secure lives, properties and its
territories, particularly in a democratic
dispensation where the common masses
reserved the right and constitutional
powers to change any regime at will.
Finally, may the Almighty everlasting
living God grant the dead a peaceful
eternal rest and give their families the
fortitudes to bear the lost. May He also
bring back peace and harmony to our
nation, and expose to shame all those
behind these devilish and ungodly
atrocities against the poor innocent
Nigerians.

Usama A. Dandare.
A social commentator writes in from
Sokoto.
@osadaby
osadaby@yahoo.com
#iamBaga #Bagamassacre #
BringBackOurGirls #ChibokGirls

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