Boko Haram gunmen on motorbikes opened fire on a group of loggers collecting firewood at Kaje village, near the Borno state capital, Maiduguri. 20 people were killed in the attack and 15 others are missing and presumed kidnapped by the attackers.
8 Jan 2018 · Kaje, Jere, Borno
Deaths
20
Kidnapped
15
Total casualties
20
Perpetrators
Boko Haram
Response
Ibrahim Liman, a civilian militia leader, provided detailed accounts to AFP, confirming the death toll and the presumed kidnapping of 15 others
Displacement
0
Socioeconomic drivers
Disrupting rural livelihoods (firewood collection, farming) to create fear, economic hardship, and force dependence on insurgents.
Trajectory
Boko Haram has increasingly utilized low-cost, high-impact hit-and-run attacks, often employing motorbikes to target vulnerable civilians, including loggers, farmers, and herders. This strategy aims to maintain pressure and relevance. The group has continued its campaign against civilians who are involved in economic activities near the Sambisa Forest enclave.
Cycle notes
Mirrored earlier Boko Haram attacks including the 13 May 2017 assaults on farmers in their fields, the 19 November 2017 Dimge farmers’ execution and beheading, the 30 December 2017 Maiwa loggers massacre, the 10 February 2017 Mussa village raid targeting livelihoods, and the 15 June 2016 Kau–Tuva attack involving killings and looting, reflecting a recurring pattern of mobile, motorcycle-based raids on rural economic actors such as farmers and loggers to disrupt livelihoods, enforce territorial control around enclaves like Sambisa, and sustain a climate of fear that deters civilian activity in contested areas.
Pattern
Loggers Targeting
Related — Armed Attack
Eight Boko Haram insurgents, armed with guns and riding on four motorcycles, attacked the village of Kuburubu at dawn. The assailants entered homes while the residents were asleep, resulting in the deaths of six people and the abduction of 13 others, which included seven women, five teenage boys, and one teenage girl. Many others were left wounded as the attackers fled into the bush with their captives.
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.
In Mangu LGA specifically, gunmen attacked the Bauda community in Langai District in the early hours of Tuesday, June 8, killing seven persons, injuring others, and razing about 61 houses including a COCIN church