Lake Chad Basin Sees 3, 982 Deaths Due To Militant Islamist Violence

A total of 3, 982 fatalities linked to militant Islamist violence were recorded in the Lake Chad Basin over the past year, demonstrating the continued resilience of Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’Awati Wal Jihad (Boko Haram) and the Islamic State in West Africa (ISWA).

This is according to the Africa Center for Strategic Studies (ACSS), which reported that the region accounts for 18% of total fatalities linked to militant Islamist groups on the continent.

Annual fatalities have hovered around the 4 000 mark for the last five years, a 50% decline from the levels experienced from 2014 to 2016 when Boko Haram was most lethal – Boko Haram launched its first violent attacks in 2009.

Boko Haram and ISWA have faced ongoing rivalries and leadership changes since ISWA broke away in 2015. Today, both groups are loosely organized around multiple cells, mostly operating in northeastern Nigeria. Estimates are that Boko Haram commands some 1 500-2 000 fighters while ISWA has between 4 000 and 7 000, the ACSS said in a new report.

“Both Boko Haram and ISWA appear increasingly well organized and equipped. Over the past year, ISWA overran 15 Nigerian military bases and, in a first, used night vision technology to launch attacks on these bases. It has also gained the operational expertise to deploy armed and surveillance drones, shifting the battlefield in the region. The groups were linked to roughly equal numbers of fatalities,” the Center said.

It noted that Nigeria experienced an 18% increase in fatalities tied to militant Islamist groups over the past year. Borno State in Nigeria’s North East Zone remains the epicenter of this violence and Nigeria accounts for 74% of all fatalities in the region.

Cameroon experienced 12% of the fatalities (467 deaths) linked to militant Islamist groups in the theatre over the past year. However, this reflects a 45% drop from the previous year—the only country in the region realising a positive trajectory, the ACSS said. In contrast, Chad has experienced a more than doubling in the number of fatalities (to 242) over the past year, resulting in more deaths than in any year since 2020. In one event, Boko Haram deployed a female suicide bomber to kill at least 40 soldiers at the Chadian military base in Barkaram.

Militant Islamist cells have also moved into northwestern Nigeria in recent years, which heretofore has been primarily the domain of organised criminal gangs (commonly referred to as “bandits”), who have engaged in kidnapping for ransom, extortion, and the seizure of farms and mines. Operating mainly in Sokoto and Kebbi States, the Lakurawa group was initially recruited by local communities to deal with banditry in the area but ended up cooperating with and operating more like bandits themselves. Lakurawa is suspected to have now established links with militant Islamist groups in the region. Comprising an estimated 200 fighters, Lakurawa is well-equipped with, among other tech, unmanned aerial vehicles for surveillance and satellite communications equipment. It was linked to 134 fatalities in the past year.

The Mahmuda group settled in the Kainji Lake National Park in 2020 after raiding it and driving away its guards. Kwara State residents said the group started as a religious body, giving sermons about their form of Islam. The Nigerian military has called Mahmuda a Boko Haram splinter. Mahmuda is associated with 24 deaths in the past year.

Given the growing level of instability in Nigeria’s North West Zone, there is also growing concern over linkages between Sahelian militant groups, especially Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS), with Lakurawa and Mahmuda as well as ISWA in the North East.

While often conflated with the militant Islamist groups, the bandits operating in northwestern Nigeria are a distinct driver of instability in this region not captured in these figures. Collectively, they are estimated to be responsible for roughly the same number of fatalities as Boko Haram and ISWA in the North East Zone, the Africa Center for Strategic Studies noted.

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