Satellite images released on Wednesday by Amnesty International show the horrific scale of the Boko Haram attack on Baga.
According to the release from the London office of Amnesty International and made available to this reporter, the images provide indisputable and shocking evidence of the scale of last week’s attack on the towns of Baga and Doron Baga by Boko Haram militants.
“Before and after images of two neighbouring towns, Baga (160km from Maiduguri) and Doron Baga (also known as Doro Gowon, 2.5km from Baga), taken on January 2 and 7, show the devastating effect of the attacks which left more than 3 700 structures damaged or completely destroyed,” it says.
Other nearby towns and villages were also attacked over the period.
“These detailed images show devastation of catastrophic proportions in two towns, one of which was almost wiped off the map in the space of four days,” said Daniel Eyre, Nigeria researcher for Amnesty International.
“Of all Boko Haram assaults analysed by Amnesty International, this is the largest and most destructive yet. It represents a deliberate attack on civilians whose homes, clinics and schools are now burnt-out ruins.”
The analysis shows just two of the many towns and villages that fell victim to a series of Boko Haram attacks which began on January 3.
Amnesty explained that in Baga, a densely populated town less than two square kilometres in size, about 620 structures were damaged or completely destroyed by fire.
“In Doron Baga, more than 3 100 structures were damaged or destroyed by fire affecting most of the four-square kilometre town. Many of the wooden fishing boats along the shoreline, visible in the images taken on January 2, are no longer present in the January 7 images, tallying with witnesses’ testimony that desperate residents fled by boat across Lake Chad.
“Thousands of people have fled the violence across the border to Chad and to other parts of Nigeria including Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State,” it said, adding that these people were adding to the hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people and refugees, who have already stretched the capacity of host communities and government authorities.
Amnesty International called on the governments of Nigeria and Chad to ensure that displaced people were protected and provided with adequate humanitarian assistance.
The destruction shown in these images, according to the organisation, matches the horrific testimonies that Amnesty International has gathered.
Interviews with witnesses as well as with local government officials and local human rights activists suggest that Boko Haram militants shot hundreds of civilians.
A man in his fifties told Amnesty International what happened in Baga during the attack.
“They killed so many people. I saw maybe around 100 killed at that time in Baga. I ran to the bush. As we were running, they were shooting and killing.”
He hid in the bush and was later discovered by Boko Haram fighters, who detained him in Doron Baga for four days.
Those who fled describe seeing many more corpses in the bush.
“I don’t know how many, but there were bodies everywhere we looked,” one woman told Amnesty International.
Another witness described how Boko Haram fighters were shooting indiscriminately, killing even small children and a woman who was in labour.
“Half of the baby boy is out and she died like this,” he said.
Boko Haram fighters have repeatedly targeted communities for their perceived collaboration with the security forces.
Towns that formed state-sponsored militia groups known as the Civilian Joint Task Force (Civilian JTF) have suffered particularly brutal attacks.
Civilian JTF groups were active in Baga and a senior military official confirmed to Amnesty International confidentially that at times the military took these members on operations to attack Boko Haram positions.
“A witness told Amnesty International that during the attack on Baga that he heard Boko Haram fighters saying they were searching for Civilian JTF members, as they went house to house shooting men of fighting age.
“After the attack on Baga, witnesses describe how Boko Haram drove into the bush rounding up women, children and the elderly who had escaped.”
Amnesty International quoted one woman who was detained for four days as saying: “Boko Haram took around 300 women and kept us in a school in Baga. They released the older women, mothers and most of the children after four days, but are still keeping the younger women.”
It called on Boko Haram to stop killing civilians, adding that the deliberate killing of civilians and destruction of their property are war crimes and crimes against humanity and must be duly investigated.
“Residents have not been able to return to bury the dead, let alone count their number. But through these satellite images combined with graphic testimonies, a picture of what is likely to be Boko Haram’s deadliest attack ever is becoming clearer,” said Daniel Eyre.
Nigeria’s Director of Defence Information said this week that the number of people killed in Baga including Boko Haram fighters, “has so far not exceeded about 150”.
Baga and Doron Baga are towns by the edge of Lake Chad, in the north-eastern part of Borno State, Nigeria.
The border between Nigeria and Chad passes through Lake Chad.
Baga and Doron Baga are located in Kukawa Local Government Area, which according to the 2006 census had a population of 203 864.
Boko Haram militants attacked Baga and surrounding towns and villages on Saturday, January 3.
At 6am, they attacked the military base of the Multi-National Joint Task Force on the outskirts of Baga.
After overwhelming the soldiers stationed at the base, Boko Haram fighters went on to attack Baga, Doron Baga and other villages in the area.
Since 2009, Boko Haram has deliberately targeted civilians through raids, abductions and bomb attacks with attacks increasing in frequency and severity.
The effects on the civilian population have been devastating with thousands killed, hundreds abducted and hundreds of thousands forced to leave their homes.
The Baga attack demonstrates how the conflict has dramatically escalated in the past 12 months.
Amnesty International’s research indicates that more than 4 000 civilians were killed by Boko Haram last year.
Médecins sans Frontières reported on Wednesday that 5 000 survivors of the attack on Baga are staying in a camp in Maiduguri.
The UN Human Rights Agency, a refugee agency, reported last Friday that about 7 300 Nigerian refugees had arrived in western Chad.
Daily News Foreign Service