A twin bombing that killed 58 people at a camp in a northeastern Nigerian town last week underlies the destructive capacity of Boko Haram that’s left 3 million people cut off from access to aid two months after President Muhammadu Buhari said the Islamist militant group had been defeated.
The camp at Dikwa stands in a town where shops and homes have been deserted by residents who fled Boko Haram’s onslaught, before it was liberated in July. About 53,000 displaced people live in tents pitched on an expanse of arid land guarded by soldiers in an area about 55 miles from the Borno state capital of Maiduguri. They’re among those who can’t be reached by aid organizations that won’t venture there due to security concerns.
Buhari said in December that Nigerians displaced by the violence would be returned home this year and that Boko Haram had been “technically defeated.”
“I have spent two days without food,” said Baana Masa, 56, a widower in Dikwa who lines up every day with his two children hoping their turn comes before the food runs out. “We escaped Boko Haram’s manhunt and now we are facing hunger.”
