Boko Haram gunmen attacked four hill communities of Hwa’a, Kunde, Gathahure, and Gjigga, setting four churches ablaze with improvised explosive devices and petrol bombs. The insurgents, who approached on foot, looted livestock and grain reserves. In Hwa’a community, gunmen targeted a retired clergyman, Rev. Jacob Kwiza (rtd) of the Church of Christ in Nigeria (COCIN), while he was picking mangoes. They forced him to renounce Christianity and convert to Islam; upon his refusal, they slit his throat. He was killed alongside two other worshippers.
13 Jun 2013 · Hwa’a, Kunde, Gathahure, Gjigga (Gwoza Hills), Gwoza, Borno
Deaths
3
Kidnapped
0
Total casualties
3
Perpetrators
Boko Haram
Response
The attack occurred despite the ongoing State of Emergency in Borno. Local residents expressed profound frustration at the inability of security forces to prevent the attack, despite the churches being known high-risk targets.
Displacement
0
Socioeconomic drivers
The attackers used the proximity of the Mandara Mountains to stage the raid and quickly disappear back into the hills, where the Nigerian military's heavy armor was ineffective.
Trajectory
This attack marked an escalation of Boko Haram’s clergy targeting strategy, evolving from earlier hit-and-run tactics to include sustained arson and forced conversions. The use of the Mandara Mountains as a staging ground foreshadowed the group’s eventual capture of Gwoza in August 2014, where it declared a caliphate. Unlike the larger suicide bombings that defined the post-2014 era, this mid-2013 assault represented a phase of systematic rural intimidation, aimed at seizing control of territory by displacing indigenous Christians before the group’s military force had fully matured.
Cycle notes
The attack mirrored the 2012 Federal Polytechnic Mubi massacre, where victims were specifically identified and separated before being killed. It reinforced the "Targeted Hit" cycle that preceded the era of mass-casualty suicide bombings.
Pattern
Clergy targeting
Related — Armed Attack
On Friday, 31 January 2014, at approximately 8:30 p.m., a large group of suspected Boko Haram gunmen attacked the EYN Church (Church of the Brethren) at Sabo Gari Gemadai Ward in Gulak, the headquarters of Madagali Local Government Area, Adamawa State. The worshippers were gathered for a night vigil when the attackers stormed the church and began shooting sporadically, killing the pastor and 10 members of his congregation. This attack occurred less than a week after the massacre at the Catholic Church in Chakawa village (26 January), which had killed over 35 persons.
Gunmen attacked security operatives along the Otukpo–Ohimini axis in Benue State, killing two officers and carting away their rifles.
Approximately 30 Boko Haram insurgents, arriving in a truck and on several motorcycles, invaded Mifa community armed with AK-47 rifles. They began shooting sporadically, killing an Islamic scholar. A teenage boy was injured in the attack—according to your query, his hands were broken. The insurgents looted food and livestock, then set the village ablaze, reducing it to ashes.