Boko Haram Slaughters 48 Fish Trader Near Chad

Suspected Boko Haram insurgents killed 48 fish vendors after setting up a roadblock near the country’s border with Chad, the head of the fish traders association told the Agence France-Presse on Sunday.

“Scores of Boko Haram fighters blocked a route linking Nigeria with Chad near the fishing village of Doron Baga on the shores of Lake Chad on Thursday and killed a group of 48 fish traders on their way to Chad to buy fish,” AFP quoted Abubakar Gamandi, head of the fish traders association, as saying.

Gamandi said the attackers set up a barricade at Dogon Fili, 15 kilometres from Doron Baga in Borno State, and stopped a convoy of fish vendors around midday, slaughtering some of them and drowning others in the lake.

“The Boko Haram gunmen slit the throats of some of the men and tied the hands and legs of the others before throwing them into the lake to drown,” Gamandi told AFP by telephone from Maiduguri, the Borno State capital.

It was unclear if the motive for the gruesome attack was robbery or if there were other reasons for the killings.

Boko Haram has once in a while targeted residents seemingly indiscriminately in its deadly insurgency