Boko Haram kills 43 farm workers in Nigeria’s northeastern state of Borno

Members of the Boko Haram Takfiri group have slaughtered at least 43 Nigerian farm workers and injured many others in the country’s highly volatile northeastern state of Borno.

Local sources stated that the massacre took place on Saturday as the farmers were busy working in rice fields in the village of Kwashebe, near Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state.

The terrorists tied up the agricultural workers and brutally slit their throats.

"We have recovered 43 dead bodies, all of them slaughtered, along with six others with serious injuries," remarked Babakura Kolo, the leader of a militia battling armed groups in the region.

"It is no doubt the handiwork of Boko Haram who operate in the area and frequently attack farmers."

Ibrahim Liman, another militiaman, gave the same account and stated that the victims were laborers from Sokoto state in northwest Nigeria, nearly 1,000 kilometers away, who had traveled to the northeast to find a job.

"There were 60 farmers who were contracted to harvest paddy in the rice fields. Forty-three were slaughtered, with six injured," Liman stated, adding that some eight others were missing, who are assumed to have been kidnapped by the Takfiri terrorist group.

Local residents remarked that the bodies were taken to the nearby Zabarmari village, where they would be kept until burial on Sunday.

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari expressed his condolences to the victims’ families and decried the attack, stating, "The entire country has been wounded by these senseless killings."

Last month, Boko Haram terrorists killed at least 22 farmers working on their irrigation fields near Maiduguri in two separate yet similar incidents.

Northeastern Nigeria has been destroyed by many years of violence involving battles between rival communities over land, countless attacks by heavily-armed criminal gangs, and reprisal killings by vigilante groups.

Boko Haram and the West Africa Province (ISWAP) branch of the ISIS terrorist group have increasingly targeted loggers, herders as well as fishermen in their violent campaign, accusing them of things lime spying and passing information to the military and the local militia who are fighting them.

More than 30,000 people have been slaughtered and almost 3 million displaced in a decade of Boko Haram's violence in Nigeria, says the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Boko Haram’s harsh violence has spilled over into the neighboring countries of Chad, Niger, and Cameroon, which have come together to create a joint military force to fight the terrorists.

Violence by Boko Haram has thus far affected 26 million people in the Lake Chad region and displaced some 2.6 million others.

The recent brutal massacre of farmers occurred as Nigerian voters went to the polls in local elections in Borno State after the vote had been repeatedly postponed because of an increase in attacks by Boko Haram and ISWAP.

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