No fewer than nine soldiers have been killed and over a dozen injured in an attack on a new military camp in Borno State.
\nAbout 27 soldiers were also reported missing after the attack.
\nThe insurgents attacked the new military base at Granda near Gudumbali in Guzamala Local Government Area in Borno State at about 9.30pm, last Tuesday, security sources said.
\nThe troops were deployed from Damboa to Gudumbali, last week, and they had barely settled down when the insurgents struck, the sources said, yesterday, pleading anonymity.
\nThough troops battled the insurgents for over an hour but lost nine soldiers in the cross-fire.
\nAir support from the air force for the fighting soldiers could not, however, yield much impact as troops were reportedly close in battle with Boko Haram terrorists, making it difficult for the military fighter jet to shell the insurgents, a source familiar with the operation told Daily Sun.
\n\u201cNine soldiers died, some were slaughtered,\u201d a military source said but did not give further details.
\nIt was gathered that corpses of the slain soldiers have already been evacuated and brought to the Army mortuary at the Maimalari Cantonment in Maiduguri.
\nAmong the items allegedly carried away by the insurgents include a military petroleum tanker, an armoured vehicle, and eight other operational vehicles.
\nIslamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), which is affiliated with the Islamic State group, has claimed responsibility for the attack, saying its fighters killed or wounded dozens of troops.
\nLate Wednesday, a military officer who requested anonymity said: \u201cSo far, nine bodies of soldiers were recovered. Twenty-seven soldiers are still missing and their fate remains unknown.\u201d
\nAnother military source confirmed the provisional death toll, adding that \u201csearch and rescue is ongoing.\u201d
\nAccording to SITE Intelligence, which monitors jihadist activities worldwide, ISWAP also claimed to have destroyed several trucks and captured numerous other vehicles in the attack.
\nThe Nigerian air force claimed in a statement Wednesday that it had destroyed two ISWAP gun trucks in nearby Garunda the previous day.
\n\u201cThe attack aircraft tracked the two gun trucks as they attempted to evade detection by driving into foliage,\u201d it said.
\nThe last Tuesday\u2019s incident was one in a series of attacks on military base at Gudumbali by Boko Haram in a decade of insurgency in the northeast.
\nRoughly 145 soldiers were killed in an attack on the military location in the town on November 18, 2015.
\nThe incident was regarded as one of the deadliest Boko Haram attacks in the state since 2011 when insurgency heightened.
\nThe military recently withdrew troops from many of its smaller locations in Borno State to bigger base called Super Camps following the introduction of a new operational concept.
\nThe new concept was randomly condemned by scores of Borno people, expressing fears the new approach could make many communities vulnerable to Boko Haram attacks.
\nThe Minister of Defence, Maj-Gen Bashir Magashi (rtd) and the Chief of Army Staff, Lt Gen Tukur Buratai held talks with Borno elders few days after similar meeting was organised by the Theatre Commander, Operation Lafiya Dole, Maj-Gen Olusegun Adeniyi at Maimalari Cantonment, 7 Division Maiduguri, Nigerian Army.
\nHowever, a least, 22,000 people are missing as a result of the Boko Haram insurgency in the North-East of Nigeria, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) confirmed in a statement, yesterday.
\nIt said that nearly 22,000 Nigerians constituted the highest number of missing persons registered with the organisation in any country.
\n\u201cEvery parent\u2019s worst nightmare is not knowing where their child is. This is the tragic reality for thousands of Nigerian parents, leaving them with the anguish of a constant search,\u201d ICRC President Peter Maurer said at the end of a five-day visit to Nigeria.
\n\u201cPeople have the right to know the fate of their loved ones, and more needs to be done to prevent families from being separated in the first place,\u201d he said.
\nDuring the visit, Maurer met with Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, senior government officials, civil society and business leaders.
\nThe Red Cross said that some families were often separated while fleeing attacks, while others have had loved ones abducted or detained and do not know their whereabouts.
\n\u201cThe ICRC works with the Nigeria Red Cross and other Red Cross and Red Crescent societies in the region to trace missing people by showing photographs, calling out names and going door-to-door in camps and communities,\u201d the statement said.
\n\u201cSo far, 367 cases have been solved since ICRC received its first cases in 2013, underscoring the immense challenges that come with finding missing people and reconnecting them with their families in Nigeria,\u201d it said.
\nThe Chief of Army Staff, Lt-Gen Tukur Buratai, last Tuesday, had said that the military had done a lot in the war against the insurgents, but admitted that humanitarian efforts were being hampered.
\n\u201cLarge swathes of the northeast of the country remain completely inaccessible to humanitarian organisations. People have also been displaced by fighting many times, making them harder to find,\u201d he added.
\nSimilarly, barely a week after the peace meeting in Abuja between the Jukun and the Tiv at the instance of the President Muhammadu Buhari, gunmen suspected to be Jukun militia yesterday attacked and killed two people in Yongogba village in Takum Local Government Area of Taraba State.
\nThis is barely 24 hours after armed bandits invaded Kukoki community in Shiroro Local Government Area of Niger State and kidnapped six people, three communities in Rafi Local Government Area of the state have come under attack.
\nA resident of Yongogba village, Mr. Kester Iorhemba, told our correspondent on the phone that the attackers who invaded the village from Takum burnt the entire village and looted valuable property.
\nAccording to Iorhemba, the attackers, riding on motorcycles and two Toyota Hilux vans, invaded the village at about 8.45am killing two people, with scores still missing.
\nHe explained that the attackers, who came through a farm, killed two people who were already on their farms before proceeding to burn the entire village.
\nThe witness, who said the casualty figure may be higher as many people were already on the farm along the route the attackers came, called on Governor Darius Ishaku, who had said he has the capacity to end the killings in Taraba State, to do so immediately.
\n\u201cI was on my way to the farm when I sighted two Toyota Hilux vans and motorcycles advancing towards our village. I couldn\u2019t call the people back home because of poor network.
\n\u201cMany people are still missing and I am sure many of those missing might have been killed by the attackers who came in their numbers.
\n\u201cOur governor, who recently kicked against a commission of inquiry into the crisis, said he has the ability to solve the problem. So I want to plead with him to end these killings.\u201d
\nThe Police Public Relations Officer in the state, David Misal, could not return his calls or reply to text messages sent to his phone for confirmation.
\nIshaku had told our correspondent that he was capable of ending the hostilities without interference from the federal or Benue State governments.
\nIn Niger, the heavily armed bandits arrived the communities in 24 motorcycles with three of them on each of the motorcycles.
\nThe communities are Rafin-wayam, Rafin-kwakwa and Gidan Dogo-Gurgu.
\nThe entire communities were thrown into confusion as people, including women and children, ran in different directions for safety.
\nAbout 800 people from the three communities have been forced to relocate, with majority of them staying in a temporary camp in some structures including schools in Kagara, the headquarters of the local government.
\nA resident of one of the communities, Malam Dahiru Mohammed, said the bandits surrounded his community, Rafin Wayam, to prevent anybody from escaping as they ransacked houses looking for what to carry.
\n\u201cThey took everything from us, including bread and beverages. They didn\u2019t kill anybody but they collected all our valuables,\u201d he narrated
\nAfter about two hour of operation, which began at about 6.45pm, the bandits left the communities in a convoy and headed to Pangu-Gari, another community in the area.
\nYouths from Kagara trooped to the streets to protest what they called \u201cincessant\u201d armed bandits\u2019 attacks in the area in the last one month.
\nThe placard carrying youths chanted anti-government slogans and blocked the major highway leading to Brinin Gwari in Kaduna State.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
No fewer than nine soldiers have been killed and over a dozen injured in an attack on a new military camp in Borno State. About 27 soldiers were also reported missing after the attack. The insurgents attacked the new military base at Granda near Gudumbali in Guzamala Local Government Area in Borno State at about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":214652,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76,26],"tags":[688],"class_list":["post-214640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-front-pix","tag-front-pix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=214640"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214640\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/214652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=214640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=214640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=214640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}