Hit by Boko Haram, Nigeria seeks France-like support

A Nigerian archbishop call-ed on Monday for the same international support to tackle Boko Haram as France has received since it was hit by Islamist attacks last week. “I see the very positive response of the French government tackling this issue of religious violence after the killing of their citizens,” said the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Jos in central Nigeria, Ignatius Kaigama.

“We need that spirit to be spread around, not just when it happens in Europe, (but) when it happens in Nigeria, in Niger, Cameroon and many poor countries, that we mobilise our international resources to confront the people who bring such sadness to many families,” he told BBC World Service Radio.

Rev. Kaigama was speaking after another bloody weekend for Nigeria in which three female suicide bombers, including one thought to be as young as 10, killed at least 23 people in the restive northeast.

His comments echoed those from the head of the UN Children’s Fund, Anthony Lake, who said on Sunday that harrowing reports from survivors of the a massive attack on Baga on January 3 and the use of a 10-year-old girl as a human bomb “should be searing the conscience of the world”. “These images of recent days and all they imply for the future of Nigeria should galvanise effective action. For this cannot go on,” the Unicef executive director said.

Meanwhile, Nigerian Boko Haram Islamists launched an attack on Monday on a military base in northwest Cameroon, forcing many to flee the area, the official sources said. “As soon as people heard the first gunfire they fled the city” of Kolofata, a local Cameroonian source said.

“The gunfire was very heavy,” said the source, adding that the military base is in an area where police, elite Army, and local government premises are also located. The police confirmed the attack but there was no immediate information on any casualties.

Boko Haram remains in control of the northeast Nigerian town of Baga more than a week after a massacre feared to be the worst since the insurgency began, a resident said on Monday. “They have set up barricades in strategic locations in the town. It is corpses everywhere. The whole town smells of decomposing bodies,” fisherman Borye Kime said by telephone from Dubuwa village in neighbouring Chad.