Why Should You Care About Boko Haram?
The brutal terrorist group has killed thousands and displaced millions in Africa, but is virtually unknown to the Western world. (Originally published Mar. 19 2018)
Africa is unfortunately often out of the mainstream news in the Western world, and that is why you probably heard about the Islamic State in Syria, but not about Boko Haram in Nigeria. Undeniably, the Islamic State and the Syrian War are crucial topics to be taken into consideration; millions of people have died in horrible situations, and their suffering needs the world attention. However, a similar situation has been going on in Northeast Nigeria since 2009 and is virtually unknown to the West, lacking the necessary attention to its own sufferings. Boko Haram is considered one of the deadliest terrorist groups in the world and has been responsible for the death of hundreds of thousands of people as well as the displacement of 2.3 million people in the Lake Chad area.
It is surprising how little the Western world knows about this massive terrorist group. Regarding my own perspective, I can say I vaguely knew about Boko Haram before actually researching the topic. I knew way more about the Islamic State and Al-Qaeda, even without ever having researched them in the first place, just as an example. This is because those groups are constantly popping up in the Western news and consequently in our daily lives, whereas Boko Haram is hardly ever featured on any large mainstream news, and when it is it lacks the same attention as its Asian counterparts.My aim with this article is to promote an awareness and briefly showcase the difficult situation caused by it, and not to reflect on specific implications and nuances.
What is Boko Haram?
When was it founded and what are its objectives?
Boko Haram is an extremist Islamic terrorist group founded in 2002 by Mohammed Yusuf, but that only gained its present form in 2009, when Abubakar Shekau became its official leader. Under his regime, the terrorist group has launched several attacks inside and outside Nigeria, including suicide bombing, kidnapping and destroying villages. The name itself, Boko Haram, which means something close to “Western education is forbidden”, already shows the main objectives of the group, the predominance of Islam in the country.
Dating back to colonial times, Nigeria has been religiously divided between Muslim North and Christian South. Since the largest cities and cultural centers are located in the South, the country’s identity has been largely influenced by Christianity. This has caused dissatisfactions among the Muslims in the North of the country, who feel misrepresented. As a consequence, a more radical side of Islamism* lead to the creation of Boko Haram itself in 2002.
Nevertheless, the turning point of Boko Haram into a powerful entity was the year of 2009. Before this year, Boko Haram had been responsible for several terrorist attacks, but they were in a small scale and in marginalized areas of Nigeria, thus lacking much attention. Still, the attacks were obviously not a situation the Nigerian government would merely disregard, and it made various attempts to end the group. The most prominent one was to capture Boko Haram’s leader and founder Yusuf, who ended up dying in the prison while trying to escape (which is still a topic surrounded by controversy, whether he actually died while escaping or was intentionally killed by the government). It seemed that the end of the terrorist group. However, Abubakar Shekau was nominated the successor of Yusuf, and filled by revenge and cruelty, he unleashed a series of backlashes towards the Nigerian government that only grew in violence, casualties, and occurrences.
*It is important to point out the obvious yet sometimes disregarded fact that extremist Muslims only account for a very small percentage of the Muslim community, which is actually composed by the most varied group of people, many of whom dislike and condemn the actions of extremists.
Boko Haram after 2009
The situation gradually evolved into the present conflict. At first, Boko Haram kept on launching small attacks to the Northern parts of Nigeria. Then, in 2010, they invaded a prison a released 105 of their members that had been imprisoned and continued their small attacks. This constrain to small attacks lasted until 2011, when the situation became chaotic. Boko Haram began using suicide bombing to attack their biggest enemies, which proved to be very efficient in the most disturbing way. They used this type of terrorism to attack the UN headquarters in Abuja, the presidential inauguration of Nigeria, and other locations in the capital. This was the second time suicide bombing was used in all African history, which put the Nigerian government into a state of alert.
Since this year, Boko Haram has generally had at least one attack per week.
In 2012, Nigeria had to enter a state of emergency. Just in the first three weeks of the year, Boko Haram killed half as many people they killed in 2011. The group had gained control over the Northeast of the country, forcing Christians, inhabitants of the South of Nigeria, and Igbos to leave the region in three days. This led to massive migration, which as of now has involved at least 2.3 million individuals, some of whom run away to to the inhospitable area of Sahel, where they are often starving to death. By 2013, the Boko Haram had expanded their area influence to the whole Lake Chad area, thus affecting Cameroon, Chad, and Niger aside from Nigerian states of Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe, which only worsened the migration.
The most infamous actions taken by Boko Haram, however, has nothing to do with suicide bombing or terrorist attacks themselves, but with the kidnapping of hundreds of girls in Nigeria. The first instance this happened was in 2014, when Boko Haram kidnapped 276 schoolgirls, causing a great commotion on the social medias, perhaps the only moment in which the conflict had the necessary attention. Although the Western attention to Boko Haram decreased after that, the kidnappings kept on happening not only in Nigeria, but in the neighboring countries like Cameroon. In February of this year, for example, Boko Haram has kidnapped 111 schoolgirls in Yobe.
Among the women kidnapped is Rebeca Bitrus, who was recently rescued. Her story became known to the world by the actions of the NGO Aid to the Church in Need, which brought her to Madrid to share her experiences while hostage.
Bitrus is a Christian married woman who had two kids when Boko Haram came to her village. Her husband run away in one direction while she run to another with her children, expecting that one of them would be able to avoid the terrorists, preferably her and the children. But the terrorist group found her, and took her and the kids as a hostage with numerous other women, girls, and children. They had to walk towards the Boko Haram camp, somewhere near Lake Chad. In the way there, one of Rebeca’s children — a baby of one year-old at the time — could not stop crying. The terrorists annoyed with the crying then killed the child in front of Rebeca. This was the first sign of what would expect her in the camp. Rebeca was asked to convert to Islamism, but she did not give in. As a consequence, she was raped, beaten, forced to work under inhuman conditions, and suffered numerous other humiliations and abuses. If this wasn’t enough, as a result of the rapes, she became pregnant of a baby named Christopher.
In 2016, after two years of hostage, Rebeca and her two children were rescued. But we cannot forget there are still hundreds of people suffering under the same cruel conditions Rebeca has been rescued from. After all she has been through, Rebeca Bitrus can only summarize her survival in a sentence: “My faith helped me escape”.
The Future of Boko Haram
The future of Boko Haram is uncertain. Although the government of Nigeria claims to be taking all the possible measures to crush Boko Haram, many experts point out to the opposite, stating that the government neglects the Northern parts of the country, as it is very poor region. Regardless of who is telling the truth, the situation is unfortunately favorable for the terrorist group, because either the government is doing all it can and it is still not close to sufficient, or the government is doing nothing significant. In both scenarios, the problem is huge not only for Nigeria, but also for the world, as terrorism is not a matter to be carelessly disregarded. This is why you should care and pay more attention to Boko Haram.
