Islamic militants attacked Pubagu late on Tuesday in northeastern Nigeria, killing 11 people and critically injuring two others, local officials said. Villagers buried the dead on Wednesday as residents tried to make sense of the latest assault blamed on Boko Haram.
Mwada Saidu Uba said Pubagu, a remote village on the fringes of Sambisa forest in Borno state, had never suffered such an attack until the previous day. The two injured victims were being treated at a nearby hospital, while Usman Rumirgo said the assailants set several houses ablaze before leaving the area.
The killings landed in a region where Boko Haram and other armed groups have long operated, and where violence can move quickly across poorly secured rural borders. Abdulrahman Bashir Haske, in a statement on Friday, condemned the killing of residents of MayoLadde community in Hong Local Government Area of Adamawa State and said the violence also spilled into Pubagu community in Askira/Uba Local Government Area of Borno State.
Haske described the attacks as “barbaric, reprehensible, and a grave assault on humanity,” and said the renewed wave of insurgent violence was a tragic reminder of the vulnerability of rural and border communities in the North-East. He said those communities are largely made up of peace-loving people struggling daily for survival and dignity, and added that the killings were senseless, inhumane and unacceptable. reported that about 20 people were killed on Tuesday when terrorists riding on motorbikes attacked two villages in Hong Local Government Area. The toll in Pubagu shows the militants are still able to strike beyond the better-known front lines, and that the human cost in Borno and neighboring Adamawa remains painfully high.
The attack in Pubagu answers the question raised by the killings in Hong: the violence is still spreading across the North-East, and rural communities with thin security remain exposed.
