Boko Haram militants have killed ten farmers in Borno State.
Some of the farmers were slaughtered at Kwashabe, a rice plantation in the Zabarmari area of Jere Local Government Area, where over forty farmers were killed three years earlier, while others were killed in Kakut village in Mafa Local Government Area.
According to one of the farmers in Zabarmari, the issue started on Friday when three farmers were abducted and a ransom of N600,000 was demanded for each of the three kidnapped people.
In order to extract more money than the N120,000 paid for the three people, the Boko Haram terrorists kidnapped fifteen additional farmers who were working on their farmlands on Saturday, only for a competing terrorist organisation to arrive and attempt to abduct the fifteen farmers.
A gun fight erupted between the two camps, resulting in the escape of thirteen farmers. In the gunfight, one person was killed and another was injured.
According to the same source, the terrorists travelled to Kakut hamlet, a rural field, and shot numerous farmers dead on Sunday evening.
“Some three days ago, Boko Haram terrorists kidnapped three farmers in Kwashabe village and demanded N600,000 for each abductee, but we kept negotiating until they agreed to collect N120,000 for the three kidnapped,” a source told Chronicle NG.
“The next day, while farmers were working in their rice farms, they came again and gathered fifteen with an attempt to kidnap, but another faction of the terrorists came, and they began an exchange of fire among the terrorists, which allowed the fifteen farmers to escape. One person was shot dead in the process, while another sustained injury.
“Yesterday (Sunday) evening around five o’clock, the terrorists went to Kakut community in Mafa local government. There they told the villagers that they had been betrayed by the villagers, and then they killed unspecified numbers of farmers.
“We just recovered nine bodies while others are still being searched for in the bush. As we speak, the nine corpses are still in the vehicle that brought them from the farm. The other farmer who sustained injury is in the hospital receiving treatment. While villagers are still searching for other corpses.”
