Unic Press UK: Since 2013, the notorious Jihad terrorist group Boko Haram, have abducted more one thousand (1,000) children in the northeastern region of Nigeria, said the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF).
In a press release Friday, the UNICEF Representative in Nigeria Mohamed Malick Fall said that children in the northeastern region of Nigeria “are consistently targeted and exposed to brutal violence in their homes, schools and public places.”
The UN body in its article ‘More than 1,000 children in northeastern Nigeria abducted by Boko Haram since 2013’ said: “Since the conflict started in northeastern Nigeria nearly nine years ago, at least 2,295 teachers have been killed and more than 1,400 schools have been destroyed. Most of these schools have not reopened because of extensive damage or ongoing insecurity.”
In 2014, it was reported that 276 schoolgirls’ were taken into hostage by the Boko Haram after the terror group attacked a secondary school in the town of Chibok, Borno State. On February 2018, the Nigerian Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, said that 110 students of the Government Science and Technical College, Dapchi, Yobe State, were missing, following the armed invasion of the school by the Boko Haram members on 19th February 2018.
About the Boko Haram
- Jama’atu Ahl as‐Sunnah li‐Da’awati wal‐Jihad [simply called Boko Haram] is a Jihad-driven terrorist organisation that was founded in 2002 by one Mohammed Yusuf. This terror group held the belief that Western education/lifestyles were completely against the teachings of Islam.
- M Yusuf, the founder/spiritual head of Boko Haram was ‘extrajudicially’ executed in 2009 after the group clashed with Nigerian Police Forces in 2009.
- The end of Yusuf’s earthly life in the hands of Nigerian security operatives is widely seen as a critical turning point in the history of the Boko Haram. Many have contended that the killing of Yusuf further radicalized his followers, thereby escalating a bad crisis.
- It was after the killing of Yusuf that this terror group commenced full military operations in 2009, killing more than 15,000 people as of 2016.
- They have attacked a number of places, including military barracks, police stations, churches, mosques, motor park stations, United Nations building in Nigeria’s federal capital territory, and so on.
- In 2015, Boko Haram pledged allegiance to Daesh (Islamic State).
- Boko Haram’s goals center on Islamization of Nigeria, to enforce sharia law throughout the gamut of Nigeria. This goal is utter delusion as Nigeria is a secular state, a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural country of circa 200 million people. More than 50% of Nigeria’s population are Christians, most of whom reside in the southern part of the country.
- Abubukar Shekau, an eccentric character who appears deluded by virtue of his utterances in Boko Haram’s numerous videos, is the head of the main group. This is one man the Nigerian security forces had claimed several times to have killed, but each time the news of his death circulates, the man Shekau rises from nowhere proclaiming to the world that he is still alive.
- In 2015, the Global Terrorism Index, published by the Institute for Economics and Peace, said that Boko Haram topped the ranking of terror groups having killed 6,644 people in Nigeria in 2014 when compared to Daesh’s tally of 6,074 people in the same period.
