War-torn Nigerian city shows devastating

legacy of Boko Haram

GWOZA, Nigeria In the sprawling town that was Boko Harams headquarters,
pretty much every single constructing has been bombed or burned or looted.
Schools and homes are littered with deserted explosives and weapons. A ditch is
full of decomposing bodies,...

11 April 2015 Saturday 21:53

Schools and homes are littered with deserted explosives and weapons. A ditch is full
of decomposing bodies, the arms of the victims tied at the rear of their backs.GWOZA,
Nigeria In the sprawling town that was Boko Harams headquarters, pretty much
every single constructing has been bombed or burned or looted.
As Boko Haram is forced out of its strongholds in a multinational armed service
procedure, the scale of its brutality is currently being exposed. Now, the govt will facial
area the dual problems of preserving the insurgents at bay though rebuilding entire
towns. About one million displaced Nigerians are waiting in makeshift camps and
caves to see if their nation is up to the process.
In the a long time considering that Boko Haram emerged as a little band of militant
Islamists, the group was equipped to slaughter and rape with impunity across
northeastern Nigeria. It seized a constellation of metropolitan areas and carried out

focused assaults in others.

Eight months in the past, Gwoza turned the command middle for that rampage the
money of the groups self-proclaimed caliphate. The insurgents were only pushed out
of the town in late March. Final 7 days, the army took a several Nigerian and Western
journalists to see what was remaining of the city its horrors hidden from the
environment right until now.
Gwozas radio tower hangs in excess of like it has been struck down by some pure
catastrophe rather of extreme firefights. (Jane Hahn/Jane Hahn for The Washington
Write-up)
The armed service has been accused of conducting its own scorched-earth strategies
throughout Nigerias northeast in latest many years. But most of Gwozas destruction
charred households with the owners names continue to scrawled on the doors,
cars and trucks riddled with bullet holes was carried out by Boko Haram, in
accordance to people. The problems is however hard to attribute with precision.
When the insurgents took around the city past August, some privileged residents have
been ready to flee. But other folks were either raped or forcibly recruited by Boko
Haram, according to citizens and soldiers. At a person level final 7 days , as Nigerian
troops drove as a result of the metropolis on a scorching afternoon, they pulled over in
front of a team of boys and young gentlemen. They had been caught combating with
insurgents, the troops said, and had been now prisoners. Some ended up as younger
as 12.
1 male in his early 20s, Hassan Usman, said he was ordered to work as a mechanic
for Boko Haram. He held up his arm. His hand experienced been amputated.
How did this happen? requested one soldier.
They accused me of stealing fuel, and they punished me, Usman mentioned.
[Young children rescued from Boko Haram are so traumatized they forgot their names]
When Nigerian troops retook Gwoza following a prolonged firefight, they started sifting
by way of what was still left of the city, on the lookout for clues that may possibly help
them greater realize the mysterious insurgent group. They observed weapons and
tanks that appeared to have been stolen from their own bases. They observed Arabic
scrawled on partitions and signs, but with misspellings and grammatical mistakes that
indicated the groups Islamic instruction was confined.
The quantity of mines was uncountable, claimed Col. Oduware Irabor, the brigade
commander in Gwoza.
Now, the as soon as-bustling metropolis of 275,000 appears like it has been racked by

a collection of organic disasters. Houses have been burned and ransacked. Boko
Haram has grow to be known for its indiscriminate strategies of burning and looting in
the towns it seizes. In Gwoza, even the radio tower was in some way destroyed, so it
droops downward like a dying plant. It was obvious to the troops that while they had
won the city, it was uninhabitable.
Nonetheless, just days soon after Boko Haram had been vanquished, inhabitants
started coming again. Within just two weeks, there had been hundreds of them,
sleeping in makeshift shelters or what was remaining of their old homes.
Fatmata Samori Bombe, 40, fled Gwoza in November, following the team killed her
only son. She remembers about 600 fighters controlling the city.
They murdered the adult males and experienced their way with the females,she
mentioned. If they saw anything here that was excellent, they took it.
When Bombe heard that Nigerian troops experienced reclaimed Gwoza, she arrived
back again. She went to her outdated household, and noticed that it had been
ransacked. Even the citys mosque had been ruined, she seen, in what appeared to be
an airstrike.
The Nigerian navy has been launching air attacks from the insurgents in the northeast
for two months. But officers say that they ended up very careful about staying away
from casualties in Gwoza, exactly where quite a few folks predicted the rebels were
being keeping the additional than 200 schoolgirls kidnapped in the city of Chibok very
last year.
If we see girls and children, we never perform the strikes, reported Air Commodore
Dayo Amao, the commander of the air forces procedure in the northeast.
When soldiers drove by Gwoza past week in a convoy of pickups, they had been
fulfilled by hundreds of cheering returnees collected near the center of the metropolis
girls in vivid headscarves, males in classic round caps. But there was no signal of
the women whose kidnapping drew the worlds notice to Boko Haram very last April. A
senior navy officer stated Boko Haram experienced likely taken the learners with them
to the Sambisa Forest, about 15 miles absent.
The Nigerian military has been roundly criticized for enabling Boko Haram to attain
floor in the initially put, and then for biding its time even though neighboring Chad and
Niger took on insurgents. The armed service has also been accused by civilians and
watchdog teams of its own human legal rights abuses, like slaying prisoners
suspected of supporting the insurgents. But in Gwoza, inhabitants greeted the troops
like liberators, searching expectantly to military services spokesman Gen. Chris
Olukolade when he approached the group.

Everything you have absent by way of is incredibly lousy, but this is the conclude, he
claimed. As you come back again and settle, the govt will guard you.
Bombe listened. She understood that other citizens remained in camps for displaced
persons, ready to see if it was safe and sound to return to Gwoza.
1 of them was Mary Birrus, who had escaped to Kano, a couple of hundred miles
absent, where by she nevertheless remains, her faith in the govt dissipated.
The Nigerian military services are not able to defend our village from Boko Haram,
she explained from the camp. If they could guard us, they need to have right from
[Boko Harams] emergence.
Birrus mentioned she had been in Gwoza when Boko Haram fighters arrived in August
in a fleet of Toyota pickups. A fighter forced himself into her house and shot her partner
in the head, she stated, including that she was able to escape with a passing truck
driver. After she still left the city, the destruction ongoing.
Some women of all ages who could not run were being taken away and those who
attempted to escape were being shot at shut selection, claimed Musa Dauda, who is
keeping at a camp in close by Jigawa state.
The insurgents transformed the name of this metropolis to Darul Hikma Property of
Knowledge in Arabic. In accordance to locals, Boko Harams ruthless leader, Abubakar
Shekau, at the time preached here frequently. Nigerian troops claim they spotted him
through the last battle for the metropolis, but they mentioned he ran off.
For now, the governments presence consists of a couple of scattered armed forces
posts, which are generally just cinderblock huts and lawnchairs. At the headquarters of
the 26th Task Pressure Brigade, which led the struggle for Gwoza, is a map of the spot
with the term Secret handwritten at the bottom. No a person has eliminated the Boko
Haram checkpoints barriers designed of tires, ladders, bicycles and sofas which
block most of the roadways in the metropolis.
Driving just outside of the town, Lance Cpl. Samuel Ambua set his finger on his nose.
You can scent it, he mentioned.
Seconds later on, his truck pulled up future to a pile of bodies, surrounded by bullet
casings, shovels and axes. Most victims appeared to have been shot in the back again
of the head. Some of the stays had been just skeletons. In component of the heap, a
bone jutted out of a tennis shoe.
Theres no one right here to bury them, Ambua explained.
Some of the victims had been wearing civilian apparel, and their hands had been
certain guiding their backs. The state of decay indicated that the people today had
been killed properly ahead of Boko Haram was defeated. The troopers could only

guess at why the adult men were being executed.

Requested in which the Boko Haram fighters had absent, Irabor, the brigades
commanding officer, looked to the map.
The space of threat would seem to be here, he explained, pointing to the Sambisa
Forest.We are focusing on destroying them.
No a person is aware how lots of fighters are still left, or what they are capable of
carrying out now that many of their weapons depots and bomb-producing factories
have been abandoned or wrecked. But even with a base in the hinterlands, they
possible could still carry out guerrilla-model attacks, analysts say.
In May, Nigerias freshly elected president, Muhammadu Buhari, will acquire
workplace. A previous army dictator, Buhari campaigned on his capability to crush the
insurgency. Hell have to do that whilst also rebuilding areas like Gwoza. Boko Haram
recruited some of its followers by providing salaries in the countrys poorest corner.
The dollars probably came from cash from bank robberies and kidnapping ransoms, in
accordance to Nigerian stability officials.
Even with Gwoza now in the militarys fingers, troops and civilians are continuously
reminded of how little they have an understanding of about Boko Haram. Around the
past couple of months, insurgents look to have carried out kidnappings even though
fleeing.
This 7 days, as troopers in army helicopters flew out of Gwoza and towards the
condition cash, Maiduguri, they spotted a guy in civilian dresses sitting atop an
armored vehicle clutching an AK-47. He was in a stretch of land the navy considered it
experienced conquered, but the troops have been certain of what they experienced
viewed.
He was unquestionably Boko Haram, stated 1 soldier.
Read more:
Young children rescued from Boko Haram are so traumatized they forgot their names.
Nigerias new president, an ex-military gentleman, vows to crush Boko Haram
South African mercenaries join Nigerias struggle towards Boko Haram.
Abubakar Umar in Kano contributed to this report.
Our editors found this article on this site using Google and regenerate for our readers
for better reviews.
Posted by Thavam