Boko Haram targets refugee camp in two-day attack

ABUJA, Nigeria—Nigerian security officials on Sunday shot and killed a suicide bomber who attempted to blow up a refugee camp in the northeastern city of Maiduguri, Boko Haram’s birthplace. On Saturday, another suicide bomber set off a bomb at the camp and killed five people.

The recent attacks—five in the past three weeks—come amid efforts to rebuild Maiduguri and other northeastern cities destroyed by Boko Haram’s insurgency.

On Sunday morning, residents at the Bakassi camp alerted soldiers after spotting the would-be bomber trying to sneak into the camp.

“The sniper instantly shot and killed the terrorist as he tried to force his way to the western flank of the IDP camp fence,” army spokesman Col. Sani Usman said in a statement.

Usman said a combined explosives team detonated the bomber’s suicide vest.

On Saturday, a female suicide bomber ran into a group by the camp’s entrance and blew herself up, killing five men and injuring 11 women. The second blast followed about 30 minutes later and less than a mile away when a suicide bomber driving a tricycle taxi carrying two passengers set off his device. Military spokesman Col. Mustapha Anka said in a statement the bomber was driving behind a fuel tanker before the explosion “with the sole aim of gaining entry to cause maximum damage and casualty.”

Anka said security officials prevented a more wide-scale attack by blocking the terrorists from entering the camp.

Bakassi is home to more than 16,000 refugees. Boko Haram has stepped up attacks across the northeast and in Maiduguri in recent months. A bomb blast on Oct. 12 killed eight refugees in a taxi van on the city’s outskirts.

“Why are they not ready for us to enjoy peace?” asked Usman Ado, a refugee at the camp.

Officials across the state have begun efforts to restore order in the region. Education commissioner Inuwa Kubo said schools across the state could reopen. Last month, state officials transported nearly 2,000 refugees back home to the town of Konduga in Borno state, 22 miles from Maiduguri.

Martin Ewi, a researcher with the South Africa-based Institute for Security Studies, said officials are under pressure to reintegrate the refugees as the camps struggle with hunger and corruption, among other problems. The government-run reintegration efforts follow a process that should minimize security threats, Ewi said.

“The government does not just take them and abandon them,” he said. “IDP’s should only go back home through the proper reintegration process.”