Heavily armed jihadists have carried out an “extremely violent” attack
on a vital aid facility housing United Nations workers in northeast
Nigeria, the UN said Monday.
No aid workers were harmed in the assault, but a military source said
that one soldier and four assailants died in the ensuing gunfight.
Islamists in several trucks fitted with machine guns stormed the
humanitarian hub near a camp holding 55,000 displaced people in the
remote town of Ngala on Saturday, humanitarian and military sources
said.
The UN said it “was outraged by the extremely violent attack on this key
humanitarian facility where five United Nations staff were staying at
the time of the incident”.
The attack is the latest to target aid workers trying to tackle the vast
humanitarian crisis caused by the decade-long jihadist insurgency in
northeast Nigeria.
An aid worker said the jihadists fired anti-aircraft machine guns and
rocket-propelled grenades as they engaged soldiers in battle.
“The soldiers managed to evacuate the aid staff to their base close by
while fighting continued,” the aid worker said.
The UN said that an “entire section of the facility was burned down as
well as one of the few vehicles UN agencies rely on for movement and aid
delivery”.
UN humanitarian coordinator for northeast Nigeria Edward Kallon said he
was “shocked by the violence and intensity of this attack, which is the
latest of too many incidents directly targeting humanitarian actors and
the assistance we provide”.
A Nigerian military officer said that the attackers “had also abandoned
a vehicle laden with explosives intended for a suicide attack near the
humanitarian hub”.
Twelve aid workers were killed in northeast Nigeria in 2019 as the
conflict has become increasingly perilous for those trying to deliver
humanitarian assistance to the hundreds of thousands of displaced.
Two female humanitarian workers are still being held by jihadists after
being kidnapped.
The jihadist conflict in northeast Nigeria has killed 35,000 people and
displaced around two million from their homes.
The jihadists have splintered into rival factions, with one group loyal
to long-time Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau and the other pledging
allegiance to the Islamic State group.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack from
either faction.
The violence has spread to neighbouring Niger, Chad and Cameroon,
prompting the formation of a regional military coalition to fight the
Islamists.
AP