Boko Haram in Nigeria

The Islamist militant organization Boko Haram is accused of kidnapping 60 women and girls from two towns in northeastern Nigeria on Oct. 23. 

The kidnappings came less than a week after the Nigerian government reported having signed a cease-fire agreement, brokered by neighboring Chad, with representatives of Boko Haram. It was to include the release of 200 women kidnapped by Boko Haram in April 2014. Abubakar Shekau, the leader of Boko Haram, denied that any agreement was ever in place.

On Nov. 7 a bomb at an ATM in Azare, Nigeria, exploded, killing 10 people. Azare has been targeted by Boko Haram in the past. 

Two Nigerian schools suffered suicide bombings in November. The first was on Nov. 10 in Potiskum, in the northeast, where a boy dressed as a student detonated a bomb at a boys’ school, killing at least 49 students and injuring more than 80. On Nov. 13, a female suicide bomber attempted to bomb a classroom at the Federal College of Education Kontagora. The bomb exploded prematurely, but as many as four people may have been killed, and at least seven were injured.

On Nov. 14, Boko Haram militants seized the town of Chibok, the same town where the April kidnappings occurred. The town was retaken by the Nigerian military on Nov. 16. The Nigerian military also recovered the town of Mubi from the militants on Nov. 13.

On Nov. 24, at least 30 people were killed when two teenage females blew themselves up in a market in the city of Maiduguri in northern Nigeria. Witnesses said that the second bomber detonated her bomb after people approached the scene of the first bombing.