World
Nigerians Face Killings, Hunger in Boko Haram’s ‘State’
An unidentified woman who fled her home following an attack by Islamist militants, in Mubi, prepares a meal at the camp for internally displaced people in Yola, Nigeria, Friday Nov. 28, 2014. Some thousands of people have fled their homes in recent times due to Boko Haram attacks. (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba)
(Reuters) – Boko Haram says it is building an Islamic state that will revive the glory days of northern Nigeria’s medieval Muslim empires, but for those in its territory life is a litany of killings, kidnappings, hunger and economic collapse.
The Islamist group’s five-year-old campaign has become one of the deadliest in the world, with around 10,000 people killed last year, according to the Council on Foreign Relations. Hundreds, mostly women and children, have been kidnapped.
It remains the biggest threat to the stability of Africa’s biggest economy ahead of a vote on Feb. 14 in which President Goodluck Jonathan will seek re-election.
But while it has matched Islamic State in Syria and Iraq in its brutality — it beheads its enemies on camera — it has seriously lagged in the more mundane business of state building.
