Jihadist fighters take hundreds of civilians hostage in Nigeria

Alleged fighters from the Islamic State in West Africa (ISWAP) raided a city in northeastern Nigeria, taking hundreds of civilians hostage, local and security sources said Wednesday.

"ISWAP 'terrorists' took control of Kukawa [in the Lake Chad region] on Wednesday and held hundreds of civilians hostage," Babakura Kolo, head of a civilian militia, told AFP.

The inhabitants of Kukawa had just returned home after two years in a camp for displaced persons, due to the violence that is raging in the Lake Chad region and especially in Borno State, in northeastern Nigeria.

One local chief who managed to escape said they had returned in early August in the hope of finally being able to farm their land, "but they immediately ended up in the hands of the insurgents". "We don't know what they are going to do with them, but let's hope they don't hurt them," confessed this leader who wishes to remain anonymous.

A security source confirmed the attack on the AFP agency and indicated that fighter planes were deployed from Maiduguri, the capital of Borno, to "deal with the situation".

Kukawa is near the large city of Baga, on the edge of Lake Chad, an area controlled by the group linked to Daesh, which broke away from the Boko Haram jihadists in 2016.

Affiliated to Daesh, ISWAP has carried out numerous attacks mainly against the Nigerian Army, killing hundreds of soldiers. It also controls medium-sized towns and villages. Thousands of civilians live under its control.

More than 36,000 people have been killed in violence in Nigeria since 2009 and more than two million remain displaced. The United Nations stated last week that 10.6 million people, out of a total of 13 million, are dependent on humanitarian aid for survival in the three Nigerian states most affected by the jihadist terrorist threat (Borno, Yobe, Adamawa).