Nigeria’s Boko Haram crisis: Maiduguri ‘preachers kill dozens’
BBC-Suspected Boko Haram militants have launched an attack in a village near the north-eastern Nigerian city of Maiduguri, killing about 45 people.
Survivors told the BBC the attackers said they had come to preach to the crowd, before opening fire on them.
Maiduguri and surrounding areas have not suffered many attacks since a state of emergency was imposed a year ago.
Instead more remote regions have become the targets of the Islamist group’s raids.
Nigeria’s government has been facing growing pressure both at home and abroad to do more to tackle the group since militants kidnapped more than 200 schoolgirls in April.
Boko Haram has waged an increasingly bloody insurgency since 2009 in an attempt to create an Islamic state in Nigeria.
Who are Boko Haram?
Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau has threatened to treat the girls as slaves- Founded in 2002
- Initially focused on opposing Western education – Boko Haram means “Western education is forbidden” in the Hausa language
- Launched military operations in 2009 to create Islamic state
- Thousands killed, mostly in north-eastern Nigeria – also attacked police and UN headquarters in capital, Abuja
- Some three million people affected
- Declared terrorist group by US in 2013
