Barely three days after the Chibok attack, Boko Haram extremists launched a deadlier assault on another town in Borno state, Nigeria, on Saturday night killing about 86 people, and leaving over 60 injured.
According to reports, the Islamic extremists entered the town of Dalori in cars and motorcycles opening fire on fleeing residents, torching houses and detonating bombs using suicide bombers, leaving the charred remains of people and livestock behind.
A survivor told the Associated Press that he hid behind a tree and watched the atrocities unleashed by the terrorists; bombed huts and screaming children burning to death. Two nearby camps housing about 25,000 internally displaced persons were also attacked.
Saturday night’s attack is the third and the deadliest attack in a week following Friday’s attack in Adamawa which left 10 dead and Wednesday’s bomb blasts in Chibok which killed 16. Survivors say the militants spent nearly 4 uninterrupted hours wreaking havoc on the community and even when the military arrived, they were underarmed, having to go back for reinforcement.
But amidst this carnage, what is worse is the silence of the government.; nothing has been heard from the Office of the President since the first attack in Chibok on Wednesday this past week. Nigerians are heartbroken, but more than anything, they express anger over the silence of the government.
I have gone thru the handles of @GarShehu @FemAdesina @MBuhari @NGRPresident and not a single word about attack on Dalori
DO WE HAVE A GOVT?— Aisha Yesufu (@AishaYesufu) January 31, 2016
Last month, President Muhammadu Buhari told the BBC that Boko Haram had been defeated, ‘technically’, since the group can no longer carry out conventional attacks. He said they have resorted to fighting with improvised explosives devices (IED) and remained a force only in Borno state. Conventional attacks or not, Nigerians in the north-east are dying in throngs, plenty more are scarred for life, not to mention the psychological trauma that would continue to haunt these survivors.
#Dalori is a call for us to review the technical defeat of BH. The magnitude of this carnage against children wasn't undertaken by a weak BH
— Edward Obi-Akpere (@Obiakpere) January 31, 2016
The Nigerian military may be doing their best, but they are yet to win the battle against the insurgency; for a terrorist group that is “technically defeated”, these attacks by Boko Haram are several hits too many.
