Abuja, Jan 21 (IANS/EFE) The Boko Haram militant group has claimed responsibility for the attack on the Baga village in Nigeria earlier this month in which hundreds of people were killed.
The group also threatened to carry out more attacks in other African countries.
“We killed people in Baga in accordance with the instructions of god in his book,” said the leader of the terrorist group, Abubakar Shekau, in a video.
He warned that the group would “never stop” committing these acts, and threatened to carry out more attacks in Cameroon, Chad and Niger, the countries working to create a regional coalition to fight the radical militia, whose name “Boko Haram” in the local language means “non-Islamic education is a sin”.
Militants Jan 7 attacked and looted the town of Baga, on Lake Chad, where they found little resistance as the security forces stationed in a nearby military base fled after another attack days earlier.
Although the Nigerian army indicated that 150 people died in the attack, residents said hundreds were killed and Amnesty International described the attack as the terror group’s most lethal.
Some women who escaped to Maiduguri, the capital of Nigeria’s Borno state, where Baga is located told Efe that dozens of women were abducted by the Boko Haram during the Baga attack.
At least 3,200 people were displaced in the Borno state after the attack, according to Nigeria’s emergency management agency.
Boko Haram has proved to be a major security threat in Nigeria since 2009. The group seeks to enshrine the Islamic Sharia law in the Nigerian constitution.
The group has killed more than 12,000 people in the past few years, according to the Nigerian government.
-IANSEFE
