Nigeria fishing town paralysed by fear after bloody events in April

ABUJA. A few residents stand amid razed houses and charred vehicles in the Nigerian fishing town of Baga, still mostly deserted nearly two weeks after fierce fighting between troops and Islamist insurgents.The bloody events of April 16 and 17 in the remote town which left almost 200 people dead are still murky and mired in heated debate.“The soldiers can claim they did not burn our homes because it happened in the dark,” resident Gaji Bukar told AFP on a tour of the village under military supervision.“But (my) area was burnt the following morning in broad daylight by soldiers who went door-to-door setting fire to homes and everybody saw them.”The military has denied accusations it deliberately shot civilians and set the blazes that razed nearly half the town, which lies near Lake Chad in the northeast corner of Borno state, the stronghold of radical Islamist group Boko Haram.Nearly 200 people, including soldiers, insurgents and scores of civilians were killed, according to rescue officials and local leaders, making it the deadliest-ever episode in the Boko Haram conflict which has cost 3,600 lives since 2009.Bukar’s account was supported by statements given to Human Rights Watch by residents who say that the morning after brutal fighting between soldiers and insurgents on April 16, the military returned to Baga and set fire to homes.“We had no hand in setting the fire,” Brigadier-General Austin Edokpayi told AFP as his troops guided journalists through the dusty streets, the blackened rubble of destroyed buildings visible throughout.He said a four-hour gun battle started on the evening of April 16 as soldiers tried to thwart an impending attack by the insurgents. A military statement explained that troops returned the next morning to “mop up.”Edokpayi commands a multi-national force that includes troops from Chad, Niger and Nigeria, which is responsible for the region where porous borders allow criminal and insurgent groups to freely flow between countries.Parts of the state have fallen under Boko Haram’s control, he told journalists, a rare admission from the security services which typically seek to portray the Islamists as being on the defensive.“Some areas are now dominated by these terrorists and people live under their laws,” he said.