Landmine blast kills 20 in northeast Nigeria

Twenty mourners were killed when the vehicle transporting them from a funeral for victims of a jihadist attack hit a landmine in northeast Nigeria, pro-government militia and residents told AFP on Wednesday.

Attacks from militants waging a 14-year war have eased in Nigeria’s northeast and they no longer hold large swaths of territory, but they still raid rural areas, hit military bases and ambush convoys.

Militants affiliated to Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) late on Monday killed at least 17 people in an attack on a farming village in Yobe State over their refusal to pay a cattle levy imposed by the jihadists, militia and residents said.

Late on Tuesday, residents from the village and neighbouring communities held a funeral for the victims in Kayayya in the Geidam district of Yobe, according to the sources.

A group of 22 men from neighbouring Karabiri village were returning home on a motorised rickshaw when they hit a mine believed to have been planted by jihadists.

“Twenty mourners died in the explosion and two were badly injured,” said Gremah Bukar, a member of an anti-jihadist militia that helps the army.

“There were fears the terrorists could return and disrupt the funeral but the people insisted on burying the dead,” Bukar said.

The two injured victims were taken to the general hospital in Geidam, 30 kilometres (18 miles) away, said Abubakar Adamu, another militia fighter who gave the same death toll.

The injuries of the two survivors were so bad that the hospital was making arrangements to transfer them to a specialist hospital in the state capital Damaturu, 185 kilometres away, Geidam resident Ari Sanda said.

Sanda, who visited the two injured in hospital on Wednesday, gave the same toll of 20 dead from the explosion.

– Millions displaced –

Yobe, Borno state’s immediate neighbour, has also borne the brunt of the jihadist violence, including deadly raids on villages, military bases, schools and markets, as well as mass abductions.

In April last year ISWAP jihadists killed 11 people in attacks on bars and a technical college in Geidam, days after six people were killed and 16 injured in an explosion targeting another bar in northeastern Taraba state.

In 2021 ISWAP seized Geidam for several days, killing people and looting provision stores before setting them on fire, prompting residents to flee the town.

They were later pushed back by troops with air support.

The violence by Boko Haram militants and rival ISWAP seeking to establish a caliphate has killed 40,000 people and displaced around two million from their homes in the northeast since 2009, according to the UN. (BSS/AFP)