More than 600 people killed during a five-day uprising by a radical Islamic sect in northern Nigeria have been given mass burials in the city of Maiduguri, police and defense officials said yesterday.
Gunbattles raged for days last week as the security forces fought to put down the uprising by members of Boko Haram, a militant movement that wants Shariah to be imposed more widely in Africa’s most populous country.
Violence flared in several states but Maiduguri, where sect leader Mohammed Yusuf has his base, saw the heaviest fighting. Police spokesman Isa Azare said more than 600 people were killed, but other officials put the death toll higher.
“Over 700 dead bodies were given a mass burial in Maiduguri town alone. Most of the bodies were buried in Yusuf’s compound, which used to be their headquarters,” a senior defense official in the capital Abuja said.
State government and Health Ministry workers have been piling corpses, some swollen after lying in the streets for days, onto open trucks. The defense official said more bodies were still being recovered from outside the city.
The troubles began last Sunday in Bauchi State, some 400km southwest of Maiduguri, when members of the group — loosely modeled on the Taliban in Afghanistan — were arrested on suspicion of plotting to attack a police station.
Boko Haram followers, armed with machetes, knives, home-made hunting rifles and petrol bombs, then went on the rampage in several cities.
Maiduguri saw the heaviest fighting.
Yusuf, 39, was shot while in police detention in Maiduguri on Thursday and the authorities were hoping his killing would bring an end to the uprising.
Hundreds of people gathered on Friday to see Yusuf’s corpse, laid on the ground in front of Maiduguri police headquarters alongside the bodies of other presumed Boko Haram members.
Officials have said Yusuf died while trying to escape but human rights groups have condemned what they said looked like an execution-style killing.
Residents ventured back onto the streets on Saturday, banks reopened and soldiers began to withdraw their roadblocks, but the authorities said house-to-house searches for Yusuf’’s followers would continue.
Boko Haram’s views are not espoused by the majority of Nigeria’s Muslim population, the largest in sub-Saharan Africa.
The Muslim umbrella group Jama’atu Nasril Islam has condemned the uprising and voiced support for the security forces.
Super Typhoon Kong-rey is the largest cyclone to impact Taiwan in 27 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. Kong-rey’s radius of maximum wind (RMW) — the distance between the center of a cyclone and its band of strongest winds — has expanded to 320km, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. The last time a typhoon of comparable strength with an RMW larger than 300km made landfall in Taiwan was Typhoon Herb in 1996, he said. Herb made landfall between Keelung and Suao (蘇澳) in Yilan County with an RMW of 350km, Chang said. The weather station in Alishan (阿里山) recorded 1.09m of
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The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday at 5:30pm issued a sea warning for Typhoon Kong-rey as the storm drew closer to the east coast. As of 8pm yesterday, the storm was 670km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) and traveling northwest at 12kph to 16kph. It was packing maximum sustained winds of 162kph and gusts of up to 198kph, the CWA said. A land warning might be issued this morning for the storm, which is expected to have the strongest impact on Taiwan from tonight to early Friday morning, the agency said. Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) and Green Island (綠島) canceled classes and work
KONG-REY: A woman was killed in a vehicle hit by a tree, while 205 people were injured as the storm moved across the nation and entered the Taiwan Strait Typhoon Kong-rey slammed into Taiwan yesterday as one of the biggest storms to hit the nation in decades, whipping up 10m waves, triggering floods and claiming at least one life. Kong-rey made landfall in Taitung County’s Chenggong Township (成功) at 1:40pm, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The typhoon — the first in Taiwan’s history to make landfall after mid-October — was moving north-northwest at 21kph when it hit land, CWA data showed. The fast-moving storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 184kph, with gusts of up to 227kph, CWA data showed. It was the same strength as Typhoon Gaemi, which was the most
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