Johannesburg - As Nigeria reels from massive and devastating attacks by the violent Islamist Boko Haram group, the UN and the AU have at last offered to help a Nigerian government clearly unable to cope.
On Monday, AU Commission chairwoman Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma promised full AU support to Nigeria in its fight against Boko Haram, which has killed up to 2 000 people in the north of the country over the past 10 days.
UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon also expressed his outrage and said the UN was “ready to assist the Nigerian government and all affected neighbouring states in bringing an end to the violence, and to alleviate the suffering of civilians with all available means and resources”.
The UN said it was sending an envoy to Nigeria to assess the situation.
The UN and AU appear to have been stung into action by a barrage of criticism that the continent and the world have ignored Nigeria’s agony while focusing attention on the terror attacks by other jihadists in Paris.
The Nigerian military’s failure to send reinforcements when Boko Haram overran its military base near Baga in north-east Nigeria on the shores of Lake Chad on January 3 – killing 14 soldiers and sending hundreds fleeing – had demonstrated it wasn’t up to the task of protecting civilians, Joe Siegle, research director at the African Centre for Strategic Studies in Washington, said on Monday.
The base was being used by the Multinational Joint Task Force, comprising troops from Nigeria and neighbouring countries, also affected by Boko Haram.
Amnesty International has estimated that Boko Haram has killed about 2 000 people in a series of attacks on 16 towns and villages in Nigeria’s Muslim north-east after routing a multinational military task force in the military base.
But it has stressed that as Boko Haram still occupies the town of Baga, it has so far been impossible to fully count the casualties.
On Monday the Nigerian government said up to 150 people had been killed by Boko Haram last week and dismissed widespread reports that 2 000 people had died.
"Without any doubt, terrible atrocities have been committed against innocent Nigerians in Baga by the rampaging terrorists," the Defence Ministry said in a statement.
But the higher death tolls being reported were the result of "speculations and conjectures ... peddled by a section of the press," the ministry said.
The figure of 150 dead, determined from surveillance and investigation, included many dead terrorists, it said.
In a shocking new development, the group – which is trying to create an Islamist state or “caliphate” in the region – is increasingly using girls as young as 10 as suicide bombers. Three such explosions have been reported over the past few days.
Survivors of the Boko Haram attacks around Baga have described days of relentless violence in which, one witness said, some people were slaughtered “like insects”.
Yahaya Takakumi, a 55-year-old farmer, told Nigeria’s Premium Times that he escaped from Baga with one of his wives and spent four days travelling to safety through the bush, but doesn’t know the whereabouts of four of his children, his second wife and his elder brother, a blacksmith in Baga.
“We saw dead bodies especially on the islands of Lake Chad where fishermen had settled,” the newspaper quoted Takakumi as saying. “Several people were killed there like insects.”
Boko Haram fighters lay in ambush along the water and opened fire on vessels carrying fleeing residents, Takakumi said. He and other survivors fled to Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state.
Another survivor, Ibrahim Gambo, told Premium Times he didn’t know what happened to his wife and daughter. The 25-year-old truck driver said he was part of a civilian militia that initially fought Boko Haram gunmen, but was eventually overpowered after promised help from the military didn’t arrive.
“We came across many bodies, some in groups and others by themselves in the bush,” Gambo said. “I saw dead children and women, and even a pregnant woman with her stomach slit open.”
Dlamini-Zuma issued a statement on Monday strongly condemning “the despicable attacks”, saying she was “especially horrified by the recent massacre perpetrated in the town of Baga, in Borno state, and in a market in Potiskum, north-east Nigeria, with the involvement of female suicide bombers, one reported to be as young as 10.”
She reiterated the AU’s commitment to continue working with Nigeria and the other countries of the Lake Chad Basin Commission, and with Benin, to mobilise international support to the Multinational Joint Task Force mandated by the countries of the region to combat Boko Haram.
Dlamini-Zuma said the AU would expedite its consultations with the countries of the region to increase assistance.
She also appealed to the larger international community for more support to the region, stressing the urgency of a co-ordinated African and international response to defeat the increasing threat posed by Boko Haram to regional peace and security.
The special UN representative for children and armed conflict, Leila Zerrougui, is en route to Nigeria to assess the situation, while the slaughter in the north-east is drawing strong criticism from political opponents and commentators.
Independent Foreign Service