By Kareem Haruna
A gory video released on the internet by Boko Haram insurgents yesterday revealed how the insurgents gathered hundreds of trapped residents of Bama in a school dormitory and shot them point blank, with one of the sect’s leaders describing the victims as infidels who they could no longer fend for under their new rule.
The video, which lasted for nine-minutes and 42 seconds, showed a large hall with bunker beds containing hundreds of civilians, mostly men, lying down in rows as the insurgents, armed with AK47 rifles, pointed the guns at them and shot down one by one.
This came less than 48 hours after it was reported that the terrorists were assembling aged persons in Gwoza town and shooting them point blank. Bama is the next town to Gwoza when coming to Maiduguri town.
The whole hall was silent except for the sound of rifles that came intermittently, followed by the occasional shout of Allahu Akbar (God is Great) from outside the windows of the long dimly lit hall.
From time to time, a voice or two would draw the attention of the shooters that some of the shot persons were not dead yet, and a shooter would walk over to the identified body and fire his rifle again.
The shooting, which had started before the video recording, showed victims lying about, some still wriggling in their final throes of death. An impatient shooter would dispatch a bullet into a wriggling body if he felt it did not die quickly enough, and then move on.
At a point, a wounded victim in grey clothes who was hiding under the corpses of his fellow dead colleagues, was fished out, and two of the shooters fired at him before he finally slumped on top of other corpses.
The floor of the dormitory hall was so filled with corpses that the attackers could hardly move freely.
Seven minutes into the video, one short and scraggy looking leader of the terrorists stepped forward to speak.
Even though most of the background voices were Kanuri, the terrorist who did not give his name spoke in Hausa.
“We are indeed very happy that God, the most praised and most exalted, has brought us to the town of Bama. In the past, our brethren in this movement (Boko Haram) had mistakenly assembled and locked up people in the prison, which is wrong because we have it on Islamic authoritative traditions that when prisoners of war are arrested, it is either they are kept or killed.
“Even though the prophet had advised during his time that the prisoners can only be kept and not killed, we felt this is not the right time for us to keep prisoners; that is why we will continue to see that the grounds are crimsoned with the flowing blood of prisoners. And, as you can see here in this video, we have made sure the floor of this hall is turned red with blood, and this is how it is going to be in all future attacks and arrests of infidels.
“From now, killing, slaughtering, destructions and bombing will be our religious duty anywhere we invade. As you can see, and as Islam has prescribed, we don’t live together in the same place with infidels. The covenant we had with God is for the infidels to be six feet down in the earth and we walk the earth or vice versa.
“Another message to our brethren and people all over the world is, don’t be deceived that we are killing innocent people recklessly; be assured that all those we killed are not innocent people – they are infidels. God that created mankind has said in the holy Qu’ran that He created man and among them are believers and among them are infidels. He did not give a third category. So it is either you are a Muslim believer or an infidel. Even the people of Bama whom we have killed now may call themselves Muslims, but we see them under the category of infidels; that is why we killed them.
“And to our great leader, Abubakar Shekau (sic), we plead with you to be patient with us as you lead us in this holy mission. We will always be loyal to you, and would never go against your instructions. We remain like a bullet in the rifle to you; anywhere you fire us, that is where we will go.”
