Boko Haram blamed for farmers deaths in Maiduguri

Fighters reportedly attack farmers in city of
Maiduguri as food shortages in the country's
northeast worsen.

Boko Haram fighters over the weekend killed at least six
farmers who were working on their land near the 
northeastern Nigerian city of Maiduguri, according to civilian militia members and locals.

The fighters, on motorcycles, attacked the farmers who
 were preparing their fields for the rainy season outside Amrawa village, 16km from the Borno state capital, on Saturday afternoon.

"The gunmen attacked the farmers with machetes as 
they were clearing their farms that have been taken over by weed in preparation for the rains which start in few days," 
said Ibrahim Liman, a civilian militia member who told the ERICGOSSIP.

Residents raised the alarm and local militia members
 pursued the attackers to the nearby village of Sojori, witnesses told AFP news agency."The vigilantes fought the terrorists and killed four while the rest fled," said Liman.

At least 20,000 people have been killed and more than 2.6
million made homeless in northeast Nigeria since the start of
Boko Haram's armed campaign in 2009.

Nigeria's government and military maintain that Boko 
Haram is a spent force, but intermittent attacks and suicide bombings pose a constant threat, particularly in remote areas.

Saturday's attack underscored the vulnerability of rural
communities even as the authorities are encouraging
displaced people to return home and rebuild their lives.

Northeast Nigeria is in the grip of severe food
 shortages after farmers missed three rainy seasons in
 a row because of the conflict.

Crops have been destroyed and food stores looted, while
farmers have been either killed or forced to flee to safety in
vast camps for the displaced.

Most of the remote region relies on subsistence 
agriculture, but domestic and international aid agencies are now having to provide food, shelter and healthcare.

The Nigerian authorities mooted a deadline of May 29 to
close the camps for the displaced in Maiduguri, though few
humanitarian organisations working there believed the date
was feasible.

In March last year, Borno's governor, Kashim Shettima, 
said about 950,000 of the 3.2 million private homes in the state had been destroyed or damaged by years of fighting.


Makeshift camps

Schools, municipal buildings, electricity and water
infrastructure and health-care facilities have also been
affected.

Those who have returned to their hometowns have found
themselves forced into makeshift camps, with water
shortages and lack of sanitation increasing the risk of
disease.

The insecurity has also affected food distribution, with 
about 5.1 million people in Borno and the neighbouring 
states of Yobe and Adamawa said to be "severely food insecure".


The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) said on Monday that
more than one million displaced people or refugees had
returned to the region from within Nigeria and outside the
country since October.

Cheick Ba, NRC director in Nigeria, said the region was "ill
prepared" to cope given the level of destruction, echoing
widespread concern from international aid agencies.

In Damasak, in the far north of Borno near the border with
Niger, 180,000 people had returned since December but they
lacked the resources to resume farming, the agency said.

The UN has said about $1bn is required for Borno, Yobe and
Adamawa this year but funding so far is well short of that
goal, despite warnings of famine-like conditions in parts of the
region.