Nigeria: Boko Haram activists kill kidnapped humanitarian worker | News from the world


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Islamist extremists in Nigeria have killed a medical worker held hostage since March.

Hauwa Mohammed Liman, 24, was killed by activists from a Boko Haram faction after the deadline, authorities said.

The Nigerian Liman, who worked in a hospital supported by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), was one of three humanitarian workers kidnapped by extremists during a raid in the town of Rann, in the north-east of the country, agitated in the north-east of the country.

A second humanitarian worker, an ICRC midwife, was killed in September. The surviving hostage worked as a nurse in a center supported by Unicef.

Boko Haram, also known as the Islamic State in West Africa, has for nearly a decade been leading a deadly campaign in northeastern Nigeria.

Activists said in a video posted last month that they would kill at least one hostage once the deadline set for Monday would be over. It is unclear what demands, if any, the extremists have demanded for the release of the hostages.

In a video broadcast in recent hours by local reporters, activists said that Liman deserved to be killed because she had abandoned Islam while working for the ICRC.

The clip also referred to Leah Sharibu, a 15-year-old girl among 100 schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram at a Dapchi boarding school in February.

While other students were released a few weeks after the kidnapping, Sharibu, the only Christian among them, was held back for refusing to convert Islam. Activists said that the teenager would be kept as a slave.

The Nigerian military and government have repeatedly stated that they are about to defeat Boko Haram and his various factions. However, raids on military bases continued, causing many casualties. The record of an attack against a Nigerian army post on the border with Niger reached the number of 48 last month. A similar attack was foiled this weekend, officials said.

Boko Haram uses kidnapping as a weapon of war, kidnapping thousands of women and girls and forcing young men and boys to fight in their ranks.

The mass abduction of more than 200 schoolgirls in Chibok, Borno State, in April 2014, drew the world's attention to the insurgency and was widely condemned. More than 100 girls have been released or found since.

Lai Mohammed, the Nigerian minister of information, said the government was "deeply grieved" by the latest killing but pledged to "keep the negotiations open and continue working to free innocent women who are still in the custody of their captors. "

The presidency tweeted "that the federal government has done everything in its power to save his life".

Analysts say Boko Haram is a fragmented coalition made up of different factions, rather than a single organization. The group has been charged with a serious fracture following the recent split in the murder of the leader of Boko Haram's veteran leader Abubakar Shekau after debating his indiscriminate attacks on civilians during raids and raids. suicide bombings.

Analysts believe that this dissident faction has a radical new leadership after another internal conflict and is responsible for recent killings.

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