No one knows for sure how many people Nigeria’s militant Islamist group Boko Haram killed in a string of violent attacks last week because there are few people left to count the bodies. The first slayings came when the militants razed the community of Baga on Lake Chad, killing hundreds and possibly as many as 2,000 civilians with little effort or care. Those who survived reported fleeing over fields of bloody corpses. A few days later, a barrage of females—including a 10-year-old girl thought to be among those kidnapped by the extremist group last April—were corseted with explosives and used as human detonators to kill scores more.
The only thing worse than the global community’s collective amnesia about the once-viral #bringbackourgirls campaign and the indifference to the latest bloodshed is the detachment shown by the Nigerian government, which still has not made a formal comment on the latest atrocities. “In this worsening narrative, women as collateral damage or easily dismissed war booty or victims or tools is a major step backward,” Adotei Akwei, the Africa advocacy director of Amnesty International, told The Daily Beast. “Not only in terms of gender bias, but in terms of accountability for all involved.”
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