The Other Massacre
While the world’s media has been focused on the terrorist attacks in
Paris, Boko Haram, the deadliest militant group in Africa today,
reportedly massacred more than 2,000 people in northeastern Nigeria.
The massacre was carried out in Baga near the border with Chad,
where the militants seized a key military base on January 3. Daniel
Eyre, Nigeria researcher for Amnesty International, said the killings
“could be Boko Haram’s deadliest act.”
And yet news coverage in the Western media in the days after the massacre was
dominated by the terrorist attacks in Paris where two brothers who
trained with al Qaeda’s affiliate in Yemen attacked the offices of
Charlie Hebdo, a satirical magazine, killing 12 people. A friend of the
brothers’ who claimed ties to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS)
in a separate attack killed five more people.
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