One year
after a massive attack ranked among the worst in Boko Haram’s six-year
insurgency, the residents of Baga in northeast Nigeria say their home is a
ghost town.
The jihadists razed the fishing hub on the shores of Lake
Chad in a four-day assault beginning January 3 last year, forcing thousands
from their homes and killing hundreds of others.
Unlike
other Boko Haram attacks, which often go virtually unnoticed outside Nigeria,
the Baga massacre made headlines around the world after it was reported 2,000
people lost their lives in the raid and Amnesty International released
satellite images showing the ravaged town.
With its
charred houses and shuttered businesses, it is hard to believe Baga used to be
a lively trading centre of 200,000 people, where merchants would travel to sell
cattle, leather goods and trade fresh produce.
“Baga is
still deserted, we are all living in camps and homes of friends and relatives
in Maiduguri because we are scared of returning home,” Muhammad Alhaji Bukar, a
displaced Baga resident, told AFP.
The
Nigerian military reclaimed Baga in March and troops patrol its dusty streets
today.
But the town’s enduring emptiness — under 1,000 people
are living there now — highlights how difficult it is to get people back home
and restore peace to the battered northeast region.
In June,
destitute residents of Baga and surrounding villages started trickling back to
fish, encouraged by military victories winning territory back from the
jihadists.
The
fisherman would sell their catch of catfish and African bonytongue in the key
northeast city of Maiduguri, the spiritual home of the insurgency and the
restive capital of Borno state.
In the
window of calm, about 5,000 residents returned to Baga. But the peace did not
last long.
In July,
Boko Haram ambushed a lorry carrying people returning home, killing eight Baga
residents.
In the days that followed, the militants slit the throats of
several fishermen and killed farmers who had returned to harvest their melons.
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