February saw a spate of Boko Haram attacks across north-eastern Nigeria, the massacre of around 90 people in Cameroon, and first-time attacks in Niger and Chad.
Apparently outraged by Chadian and African Union decisions to provide military units to combat the scourge of radical Islamism in West Africa, the group is taking its revenge on Christians and on Muslims who do not share their ideology.
Bus bombs
In the last week of February alone there were five incidents in Nigeria. On 26 February, a suicide bomber at a bus station in Biu, in Nigeria’s Borno state, killed at least 17 people as he blew himself up. On the same day, 15 people died as a result of bombs thrown from a car at a bus station and the university in the city of Jos, in central Nigeria. Educational facilities are a regular target of Boko Haram, whose name means ‘Western education is forbidden’.
Just two days earlier, a suicide bomber attempting to board a bus at the Dan-Borno bus station in Potiskum, in Nigeria’s northeastern Yobe state, killed 17 people; over 30 more were injured. Just hours after the attack, another suicide bomber at the Kano Line bus station in Kano city killed 10 people after detonating the explosives strapped to his body while he got off a bus.
8 year old suicide bomber
And on 22 February, a young girl thought to be no more than eight years old, detonated the explosives strapped to her body, killing five people just outside a market in Potiskum. This is the third time this year that Boko Haram is suspected to have used children as suicide bombers. Parents in Nigeria are being warned to take extra care of their children when they are outside the home, lest they be given explosive devices as ‘toys’.
First time
Earlier in the month, Boko Haram struck Niger and Chad for the first time. After African Union countries agreed on 30 January to back a 7,500-strong unit to fight against the insurgency group, Boko Haram retaliated by attacking towns in Niger and Chad on 6 and 13 February respectively.
Christian homes in Niger had been marked with the sign ‘P52’ to identify them for attack. ‘We never thought that Boko Haram would attack us, because we trust our security forces,’ commented a church leader from Niger. The government of Niger invited Christians to participate in a protest against Boko Haram, putting them in a prominent place at the front of the procession.
