Gunmen kill ’40 farmers’ in Borno ambush

Suspected members of the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) have reportedly killed about 40 farmers in Kukawa LGA of Borno.

Zagazola Makama, a counter-insurgency publication focused on the Lake Chad region, reports that the attack occurred on Sunday.

The publication quoted intelligence sources as saying that the farmers negotiated payment of levies to a faction of ISWAP, which was supposed to grant them access to farmlands near Daban Leda.

The source said another ISWAP group, unaware of the agreement, ambushed and killed the farmers.

Makama also quoted Abubakar Gamandi, chairman of the Lake Chad fishermen association, as detailing the incident and survivors’ accounts of the armed group’s betrayal.

“Our farmers were killed after they went to the ISWAP enclave to farm. They had made an arrangement with ISWAP and paid them money,” Gamandi said.

“Unfortunately, another faction of ISWAP, unaware of the agreement, attacked them. This is what the survivors who escaped told us.

“Only when they all come out can we ascertain the total number of casualties.”

Another eyewitness put the death toll at 40.

Some farmers pay taxes or levies to terrorists or bandits in certain communities in the north of Nigeria.

Nahum Daso, Borno police spokesperson, neither picked calls to his phone nor replied text messages when TheCable tried to reach him for a reaction.

Africa’s most populous nation has been battling an insurgency that has killed more than 50,000 people and displaced millions from their homes since 2009.