KANO, Nigeria: Boko Haram jihadists killed four people during a raid on a camp for civilians displaced by the Islamist group’s violent insurgency in Nigeria’s troubled northeast, security sources said Saturday.
The gunmen entered the camp in the town of Banki near the border with Cameroon on bicycles and on foot Friday night and opened fire.
“Boko Haram terrorists entered Banki IDP (internally displaced people) camp last night and killed four people, injured four others and took supplies away with them,” a military officer in the town told AFP.
The shots drew the attention of soldiers and policemen outside the camp, who then engaged the militants in an hour-long gunbattle, said the officer, who asked not to be named.
“Two terrorists were killed in the fight and the rest fled,” he added.
A member of a militia force assisting the military said the jihadists used ladders to scale a ditch dug around the camp to stop such an incursion.
“This was why security personnel keeping sentry at the entrance of the camp were taken off-guard,” he said.
“From all indications, they came to steal food supplies.”
Hours later two soldiers were wounded when their patrol vehicle hit a land mine planted by the fleeing jihadists at Freetown village, nine kilometers (five miles) away, he added.
Banki, which is 130 kilometers southeast of Borno state capital Maiduguri, houses 45,000 displaced people in a sprawling camp.
The camp was relatively calm after opening in March 2015.
However Boko Haram has since raided it numerous times, including in February when militants stole food and clothing before being repelled by soldiers.
Eleven people were killed in another raid in September.
Boko Haram’s nine-year armed violence to establish a hard-line Daesh in remote northeastern Nigeria has killed more than 20,000 people.
Boko Haram kills four in Nigeria displaced civilians camp
Boko Haram kills four in Nigeria displaced civilians camp
- Boko Haram’s nine-year armed violence to establish a hard-line Daesh in remote northeastern Nigeria has killed more than 20,000 people
- A member of a militia force assisting the military said the jihadists used ladders to scale a ditch dug around the camp to stop such an incursion
Italian police fire tear gas as protesters clash near Winter Olympics hockey venue
- Police vans behind a temporary metal fence secured the road to the athletes’ village, but the protest veered away, continuing on a trajectory toward the Santagiulia venue
MILAN: Italian police fired tear gas and a water cannon at dozens of protesters who threw firecrackers and tried to access a highway near a Winter Olympics venue on Saturday.
The brief confrontation came at the end of a peaceful march by thousands against the environmental impact of the Games and the presence of US agents in Italy.
Police held off the violent demonstrators, who appeared to be trying to reach the Santagiulia Olympic ice hockey rink, after the skirmish. By then, the larger peaceful protest, including families with small children and students, had dispersed.
Earlier, a group of masked protesters had set off smoke bombs and firecrackers on a bridge overlooking a construction site about 800 meters (a half-mile) from the Olympic Village that’s housing around 1,500 athletes.
Police vans behind a temporary metal fence secured the road to the athletes’ village, but the protest veered away, continuing on a trajectory toward the Santagiulia venue. A heavy police presence guarded the entire route.
There was no indication that the protest and resulting road closure interfered with athletes’ transfers to their events, all on the outskirts of Milan.
The demonstration coincided with US Vice President JD Vance’s visit to Milan as head of the American delegation that attended the opening ceremony on Friday.
He and his family visited Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” closer to the city center, far from the protest, which also was against the deployment of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to provide security to the US delegation.
US Homeland Security Investigations, an ICE unit that focuses on cross-border crimes, frequently sends its officers to overseas events like the Olympics to assist with security. The ICE arm at the forefront of the immigration crackdown in the US is known as Enforcement and Removal Operations, and there is no indication its officers are being sent to Italy.
At the larger, peaceful demonstration, which police said numbered 10,000, people carried cardboard cutouts to represent trees felled to build the new bobsled run in Cortina. A group of dancers performed to beating drums. Music blasted from a truck leading the march, one a profanity-laced anti-ICE anthem.
“Let’s take back the cities and free the mountains,” read a banner by a group calling itself the Unsustainable Olympic Committee. Another group called the Association of Proletariat Excursionists organized the cutout trees.
“They bypassed the laws that usually are needed for major infrastructure project, citing urgency for the Games,” said protester Guido Maffioli, who expressed concern that the private entity organizing the Games would eventually pass on debt to Italian taxpayers.
Homemade signs read “Get out of the Games: Genocide States, Fascist Police and Polluting Sponsors,” the final one a reference to fossil fuel companies that are sponsors of the Games. One woman carried an artificial tree on her back decorated with the sign: “Infernal Olympics.”
The demonstration followed another last week when hundreds protested the deployment of ICE agents.
Like last week, demonstrators Saturday said they were opposed to ICE agents’ presence, despite official statements that a small number of agents from an investigative arm would be present in US diplomatic territory, and not operational on the streets.
