Nigeria’s militant Islamists have carried out a second attack on the key north-eastern town of Baga, an official has told the BBC.
Boko Haram fighters burnt down almost the entire town on Wednesday, after over-running a military base on Saturday, Musa Alhaji Bukar said.
Bodies lay strewn on Baga’s streets, amid fears that some 2,000 people had been killed in the raids, he added.
Christ. Never ask if things can get worse.
The people of Nigeria have my sympathy--as much good as that does them with this much grief to go around.
Perhaps--hopefully--as many as possible of those missing simply scattered and have survived.
But that isn't the intent of the jihadis.
Yeah, that reformation should happen any time now, please. Yesterday would not be too soon.
And in the meantime, let's get on with the job of killing jihadis. Everywhere our power can reach.
UPDATE: Kill jihadis. Because against all the odds, that #bringbackourgirls Twitter campaign didn't do the trick.
UPDATE: While the statistics are still in doubt, the tragedy is not:
It’s not clear how many people were killed in Baga. Early reports on Thursday said hundreds. Others said it was many more. Musa Alhaji Bukar, a senior government official in Borno, said Boko Haram killed more than 2,000 people which, if true, would mean the group equaled its total kill count last year in one attack. More were said to have drowned in Lake Chad while attempting to swim to a nearby island. Some estimates said more than 20,000 people are now displaced as a result of what one reporter called Boko Haram’s “most horrific act of terrorism yet.”
Baga, local government officials say, is simply no more.
The Nigerian military is making an effort to re-take Baga. They can probably manage that.
Whether they can hold it when Boko Haram comes back isn't something I'd want to trust if I was a (surviving) resident who had already relied on the military to protect them.
