Rescued Boko Haram Victims: 61 Infants Hospitalized And 478 Malnourished Kids For Special Care

Sixty one critically malnourished infants have been hospitalized on the orders of Borno State Governor, Kashim Shettima after he relocated 478 children and 219 adults, all of them malnurished due to two years captivity in the hands of Boko Haram insurgents before they were rescued by the Nigerian Military. 

The victims were moved from Bama to a special care unit in Maiduguri on Monday. Dozens of buses brought conveyed them to a newly opened special care unit in Maiduguri.

The 61 infants now hospitalized at Umaru Shehu Specialist Hospital, owned by the State Government in Maiduguri, are undergoing medical care arising from extreme deprivation of food. They were ‎part of the 478 children moved from Bama alongside 219 adults also malnurished. The adults consist of 196 women, some of whom gave birth to part of the 478 children. The rest of the adults are 23 men, looking thin.

30 bodies recovered in Chibok villages after Boko Haram attacks

At least 30 bodies have been recovered from two communities near Chibok in Borno State where suspected Boko Haram militants attacked Sunday, members of a local vigilante group have said.

Members of the vigilante group said they found 30 corpses from surrounding bushes and Churches in Kwada and Kautikari villages. Search was continuing in the area, they said. Gunmen stormed Kwada and Kautikari early Sunday burning Churches and shooting worshippers.

The Borno State police spokesperson, Gideon Jubrin, said he was informed of the attack, but said he did not have full details as of Sunday afternoon. Mr. Jubrin said he was yet to contact the district police officer in charge of Chibok.

Who are the girls in that Boko Haram video? Parents, students, teachers identified 77 of them

Borno state governor says they're all from the Chibok boarding school raided by Boko Haram militants April 14. But some relatives say they don't see their daughters in the video, and believe some of the girls were taken in earlier abductions.

Peter Oshun writes an "OPEN LETTER TO THE FIRST LADY"

Dear Madam:

It grieves me to pound out a letter to your good self in circumstances such as these, on the subject on which I feel compelled to address myself to you in the paragraphs below, because they are matters which as the oyinbo would say, really should go without saying. My grief aside, I also am conscious of the impertinence on my part, certainly a slight sense of incongruity, as with the young Obi Okonkwo in Chinua Achebe’s No Longer at Ease when he won public disgrace and reduced his primary school headmaster to tears by writing a letter to Adolf Hitler, no less, at the height of World War 2. You are no Adolf Hitler, madam, but neither am I a precocious prepubescent colonial pupil unmindful of the treasonous implications of giving aid and comfort to the enemy in wartime. I am a Nigerian citizen concerned about the welfare of my own sovereign state, and you madam, far from being in a legal state of war with Nigeria, are the wife of its elected president. By some bizarre twist of circumstances you could well be the most important person in Nigeria today, certainly the most important person in government, by virtue or in spite of your constitutionally indeterminate position as First lady, with all the arrogated powers appurtenant.

Latet Update: Abducted schoolgirls; parents insist 234, not 129, girls abducted Premium Times

There was confusion today in Chibok, Borno state, when parents of abducted schoolgirls at Government Girls Secondary School insisted that 85 more girls than admitted by officials were abducted from the school.

The Borno state commissioner for education and the principal of the school had claimed that 129 girls were kidnapped when the suspected Boko Haram gunmen stormed their dormitories on April 14.

Of the number, the officials said, 28 initially escaped while another 16 broke free from the abductors days later. The remaining 85 are still missing, they claimed.

However, parents told Borno state Governor, Kashim Shettima, who visited Chibok Monday, in defiance of security warnings, that by their records, 234 girls were abducted, suggesting that 190 of the pupils are yet to be found.

Boko Haram Gunmen Kill 39, Burn 1,000 Homes, Schools, Clinics in Borno

No fewer than 39 persons have been buried amidst tears in Kondugu village of Borno State after gunmen believed to be Boko Haram insurgents attacked the community on Tuesday night and set ablaze over 1,000 homes, injuring several others, security and government officials said.

The attack, which occurred at about 6pm, was described as one of the worst, as the gunmen who rode into the village in military trucks and tanks, used sophisticated arms like rocket launchers and Improvised Explosive Devises that destroyed several schools, clinics and shops.

Residents said the soldiers didnot act well during the attack, even as some said the air force jet that came hovering over the village, dropping some bombs only came about three hours into the attack, and did not make any impact as the attackers mobilised and fled in their trucks.

Borno State governor, Alhaji Kashim Shettima, who wept profusely as he visited the villages as some of the burnt structures were still smoking, said the gunmen were about 400 in number and destroyed over 70 percent of the town. He called for "additional troops, and additional support from the military."

Shettima immediately directed the commissioner for local government and chieftaincy affairs to effect the release of N100 million for the immediate renovation and rebuilding of the burnt homes, schools, clinics, and other worship places, and said he would in the next three days relocate his office to Konduga, irrespective of any security challenges.

A village provisions seller, Mustapha Umar, told LEADERSHIP's reporter who was also in Konduga, that the attackers stormed the village from all directions.

"We had to flee for our dear lives; even the few soldiers in town could not stand them because their guns were mounted on vehicles while some threw explosives that brought down the Central mosque, Konduga, the maternity clinic, the District Head's palace and several other places. More than 50 people were injured and taken to the hospital, while we are now preparing to bury 39 of our people that died. We don't know how many would be found in the bushes later," said Umar.

Governor Shettima, who walked for three hours all over the charred villages, consoling the old and young villagers that sat helplessly outside their burnt homes,described the attack as wicked and ungodly.

He said: "We will never give in to the antics of the Boko Haram; this is our land; we will stay here and salvage it together. We will never be frustrated. Look at what these lunatics did; they burnt down mosques; churches, they burnt hapless people's homes and so on."