SAN FRANCISCO, September 11, (THEWILL) – A civilian, two soldiers of the Multinational Joint Task Force, MNJTF, and four Boko Haram insurgents have been killed in multiple attacks and battles between the force and the insurgents.
The civilian – a bus driver, died when Boko Haram fighters, on Saturday, opened fire on a convoy of vehicles travelling to the Borno state capital, Maiduguri, from the garrison town of Monguno, 140 kilometres (about 85 miles) to the northeast.
The victims were heading to Maiduguri to celebrate the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha on Monday and the vehicles included traders in a pick-up truck packed with rams for the annual ritual sacrifice.
THEWILL gathered that they shot dead a driver and injured two women and a child travelling with him while the traders abandoned their animals when the shooting started and the rams were seized by the rebels.
A car abandoned by fleeing travellers was torched in the attack, and the wounded were taken to a hospital in Maiduguri for treatment.
The two soldiers of the MNJTF, were killed, on Thursday, in an explosion while fighting Boko Haram insurgents in the northern part of Borno State near the Cameroon border.
According to the spokesperson of the MNJTF, Muhammed Dole, the victims were returning to their base at the end of the day’s operation when their truck ran into a landmine that killed a ranked officer and a private soldier.
Six other soldiers sustained serious injuries and were evacuated to a military hospital in Niamey, Niger Republic for medical treatment.
Dole, however revealed that the troops were able to clear 12 camps and gunned down four insurgents on Friday. Two insurgents were also arrested at Tumoua village, Mr. Dole said.
The MNJTF consists of military personnel from Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria with a task to to secure the border areas shared by the countries and to clear the remnants of Boko Haram insurgents fleeing the Sambisa forests into those areas, under the special operation tagged Gama Aiki.
Meanwhile, a suspected Boko Haram kingpin, Adamu Damuna, has been arrested by soldiers and operatives of the civilian-JTF operating near Buratai, the home town of the Nigerian Chief of Army Staff, Tukur Buratai.
Story by David Oputah.
