At least eleven people were killed and several others missing after an attack on rice fields in Borno state (northeastern Nigeria) on Sunday, AFP said on Monday, blaming jihadists.
• Also read: Nigeria is struggling to contain one of its worst diphtheria outbreaks
• Also read: Nigeria: 76 people arrested for organizing a “gay wedding”.
Farmers are often targeted by Islamists in the northeast of the country, where they have caused around 40,000 deaths and more than two million displaced people since 2009.
The attackers, suspected of belonging to Boko Haram, stormed rice fields in Zabarmari district, near the regional capital Maiduguri, on Sunday evening. They cut residents’ throats and kidnapped others, according to local sources interviewed by AFP.
Farmers from Karkut village were then at their plantations protecting their crops from theft before transporting them home the next morning.
“We found 11 bodies, all slashed by the Boko Haram attackers,” said Babakura Kolo, head of the local anti-jihadist militia that helped evacuate the victims.
Several people are missing and four victims survived their injuries and were taken to the hospital.
The funerals of the eleven victims took place on Monday afternoon at the Zabarmari Central Mosque.
“We need peace and security,” said the brother of one of the victims. “We are asking the government for help, we farmers are not safe,” he added.
Attacks by Boko Haram and the Islamic State in West Africa (Iswap) on farmers, loggers, herders and fishermen, whom they accuse of informing the army and the local militias fighting them, have intensified in recent years.
According to local authorities, Boko Haram killed 76 farmers in Zabarmari in December 2020.
Jihadist fighters have lost ground in northeastern Nigeria but continue to attack rural communities.