Kano state and its capital city of 10 million people have been under siege by the Islamist sect Boko Haram
DAKAR (AlertNet) – Many people have been fleeing Nigeria’s second city of Kano in the north of the country after recent violent attacks by the Islamist sect Boko Haram, the Nigerian Guardian newspaper has reported.
Kano state and its capital city of 10 million people have been under siege by gunmen from Boko Haram, which wants to impose sharia law across Nigeria.
People carrying heavy luggage have crowded, hoping to escape the growing violence with many unsure if they will ever be able to return to the city, the paper said.
“I and my husband are moving with all our families and property, said Edith Okwolisa who hails from Anambra state in southern Nigeria. “The problem is still going on and we do not have the intention of returning to Kano again. We are not coming back.”
Boko Haram, whose name translates as "Western education is sinful", is a movement loosely modelled on the Afghan Taliban. The group has been behind almost daily killings in its home base in the largely Muslim northeast.
However, violence has spread west into other parts of the north and the capital Abuja since last year and has recently escalated in Kano where the sect has been involved in shoot-outs and battles with security forces.
Gunmen bombed a police station on Sunday outside the city of Kano, where 186 people were killed two weeks ago in a series of coordinated bomb blasts, the police and witnesses said.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) says it has assisted over 4,000 people who have fled their homes in the past weeks in the states of Yobe, Borno, Gombe and Adamawa.
Rights groups say hundreds of people who hail from the mostly Christian and animist southern parts of Nigeria are returning to their places of origin.
“I have lived in this Kano for 25 years now, but today, I am afraid more than ever before because we do not know what will happen any moment now,” said Romanus Obiwuru, who is originally from the southern Anambra State.
“We are all afraid. My people at home keep calling to tell come back home with my family. So, I have no choice but to move my family home and wait for a while and see how everything ends,” said the dealer in electrical parts.
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