Gunmen suspected to be members of the Boko Haram group have killed fi ve fi shermen in Tudun Island area, a remote island in the Lake Chad Basin. President of Fishermen Association, Alhaji Abubakar Gamandi,told newsmen on Saturday that the fishermen were assisting the Nigerian military in the search for the 110 Government Girls Science and Technical College Dapchi missing schoolgirls abducted by the Boko Haram insurgents last month.
Gamandi said the incident occurred when the five members of the association were attacked and unfortunately killed while on the search of the abducted girls along the river side of the Lake Chad by suspected insurgents.
“The five men who went fi shing near the border of Chad Republic in the Lake Chad Basin were shot dead,” he said. Gamandi added that the attack occurred in Tudun, the umbrella island in Lake Chad, which borders Nigeria, Chad and Cameroon Republics. It will be recalled that the members of the Boko Haram group invaded Government Girls Science and Technical College, Dapchi, Yobe state in February this year and abducted 110 schoolgirls.
Gamandi explained that his members were killed because they were assisting the Nigerian military in the search for the missing GGSTC Dapchi schoolgirls. “Actually, fi shermen have been assisting the Nigerian military in the operation to locate the GGSTC Dapchi schoolgirls because we know the terrain well,” Gamandi said.
Blueprint learnt that the insurgents have repeatedly attacked fishermen in the border areas of Lake Chad Basin in recent years while the war against in the NorTheast has left more than 20,000 people dead and displaced over than two million from their homes since 2009.
