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‘8 Civilians Killed During Friday’s Barracks Attack’

Kareem Haruna

— March 19, 2014

Chairman of the State Special Emergency Relief Committee, Bulama Mali Gubio, has said that about eight civilians died during the Friday attack on military barracks in Maiduguri, Borno State by members of the Boko Haram sect.
Gubio, who disclosed this  during a relief material distribution exercise to residents who suffered during the attack, said about five communities around the barracks were affected by the attack.
He said,  “From what we gathered from affected communities, eight people died. These are not included in the numbers of insurgents killed. These are civilians. Some of those wounded are still in the hospital.
“In term of material loss, it was a colossal but the casualty was not as high as we thought judging from the over three hours of bombardment that took place”,
Governor Kashim Shettima, who was out of the country when the attack took place, had constituted the special committee on Saturday. He also directed that relief material should be made available to the victims.
The Gubio-led committee had yesterday visited Giwa Barrack of the 21 Armoured Brigade and the affected surrounding communities of Fori, Koreri, Wadia,,Abbari and Gambori villages to present trucks of assorted relief material for onward distribution to affected victim.
“What we’re doing now is to distribute food items and non food items to the victims and affected communities at least to address their immediate need. We aren’t going to put the people in camps as is often the case because most of them are not use to such life and unwanted persons could infiltrate them. The state government would later rebuild their burnt houses”, said the committee chairman.
The committee presented five trucks of foodstuffs, clothes, cooking utensils and N1 million to leaders of each of the affected communities, while the relief sent to the barracks was received by the Chief of Staff to the Brigade Commander of the 21 Armoured Brigade, Col John Ekperende who expressed thanks to the Borno State government for the gesture.
Chairman of Jere Local, Alhaji Yankus and his counterpart in Maiduguri Metropolitan Council, Abdulkadir Rahis, in whose councils most of the victims of the attack are residing said the relief material that was estimated about N27 million.
The committee said the relief items distribution forms the first phase of their assignment as the next phase would involve building destroyed homes for the affected villagers.