Nigeria - Fundamentalist death toll now 700, says security commander

September 1st, 2009

 

 

Lagos (Nigeria) — A commander of the state adhoc security group, codenamed, 'Operation Flush' deployed to tackle members of the Boko Haram fundamentalist sect which last week inficted violence on Bauchi and Borno states, Colonel Ben Ahanotu yesterday said about 700 bodies have so far been recovered in Maiduguri alone after the clash between police and the radical Islamist sect subsided. The toll was previously thought to be around 300.

The disclosure of the casualty figure in the Borno State capital came as the top echelon of the nation's security services met in Kano for most part of the weekend to formulate appropriate strategy for averting similar occurrence in the future.

Ahanotu told the Associated Press (AP) that mass burials have begun because bodies were decomposing in the heat. The Islamist compound destroyed this week by government troops is one of the burial sites, he said.

"They've got almost 700 bodies," Ahanotu, who is in charge of security in Maiduguri, said of officials gathering bodies.
"Right there, they had to do a mass burial there because there are a lot of bodies inside," he said, pointing to what used to be the Boko Haram sect leader's compound. It is now smoldering rubble with digging equipment around it.

Maiduguri city was largely quiet yesterday. Its streets had been cleared of bodies and the blood spilled during five days of fierce fighting. Banks and markets have reopened.But sporadic violence continued.

At the Umaru Shehu Hospital, an official, who asked not to be named because he feared more violence, said five other people had been killed Saturday, their bodies left in the parking lot. He said 172 bodies had been brought to the hospital since Tuesday. He said people were coming to the hospital Saturday to remove sick relatives so they wouldn't get caught up in the violence.

Destruction was evident only in some areas of the city: The police building was in ruins and smoke rose from the destroyed compound of the sect's leader, Mohammed Yusuf, where bodies were now buried. The compound was guarded by soldiers armed with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades.

A bloodied man, alleged to be a member of the sect, lay beneath a tree, his hands tied behind his back, guarded by the soldiers.

Borno Police Commissioner Christopher Dega said the members of the Boko Haram sect are likely in hiding and may be using the current calm to regroup. "I am warning all of you to report immediately if such members are fighting," Dega told reporters late Friday.

Associated Press reporters saw two men heavily sweating as they were questioned by soldiers outside the compound. They were later released. One of them, 35-year-old Ibrahim Mohammed, told the AP that he and his family cowered in their house for days, terrorised by knife and sword-wielding sect members - then later by soldiers, who, he said, would shoot anything that moved.

"It was terrible," Mohammed said as he drew an imaginary knife across his throat. "At first if you run, (the sect) will knife you, and then after you run, (soldiers) will shoot you." He said he hid 17 neighbors, including a pregnant woman, in his house during the fighting.

In a wave of violence that began last Sunday, in Bauchi and quickly spread to three other northern states, including Borno, the sect, Boko Haram - the name means "Western education is sacrilege" - attacked police stations, churches and government buildings. The group is seeking the imposition of strict Islamic Shariah law in Nigeria, a country of several religions.

On Wednesday, troops retaliated, killing about 100 people, half of them inside the sect's mosque. The bodies of barefoot young men littered the streets of Maiduguri on Thursday morning as security forces hunted militants.

An Associated Press reporter saw dead bodies piled into at least six trucks in the hospital's parking lot on Wednesday.

Mohammed Yusuf, head of the Boko Haram sect, was killed Thursday after he was found hiding in a goat pen at his in-laws' home. The details of his death remain murky.

Nigeria's Civil Rights Congress, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International called for investigations into Yusuf's death and other killings during the upheaval.

Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), lawyers, politicians, clerics and members of the international human rights community yesterday condemned the handling of the disturbance by the police which led to the high death toll.

 

source.This Day (Nigeria) - nca