This bloodstained Islamist movement is advancing remorselessly, inflicting a human calamity on one of Africa’s most remote regions. Boko Haram now dominates the Nigerian shore of this verdant oasis on the southern fringe of the Sahara, pillaging and burning entire towns at will.
Nigeria’s army, outgunned and outfought, has lost control of thousands of square kilometres, abandoning locals to their fate. Almost 180,000 have responded by fleeing to neighbouring countries.
The testimony of the refugees who have witnessed Boko Haram’s atrocities helps to paint a picture of the methods of Africa’s deadliest Islamist insurgents.
Nasiru Saidu, 43, a trader, said even before the Doron Baga raid, he knew of Boko Haram’s methods through bitter experience.
Last June, the gunmen raided a village where his brother, Qassem, lived. They carried away his brother’s wife and their four sons.
Mr. Saidu fears the boys will be brainwashed and turned into child soldiers. “I think they are going to recruit them. That is what we know they do with young boys. They are raping the women and they are taking the young boys to their camps and teaching them everything about what they are doing.”
When Boko Haram capture a town, the fate of its people rests on whether or not they resist. Those who put up a fight can expect nothing but pitiless massacre.
Those who succumb are treated differently. The gunmen generally assemble residents and announce their home has become part of the new “Islamic Caliphate” they are building across Africa.
Then, people are divided into groups. Young men and boys are often taken away for indoctrination and training. Girls are likely to be carried off to be sex slaves for fighters, while women become domestic servants. Middle-aged men run the greatest risk of being summarily killed.
The women and girls are effectively enslaved, said Mr. Saidu. “They are just used as things.”
For those who escape such fates, life under Boko Haram’s rule is one of hardship and hunger. So far, the movement has not tried to build a government in the territory it holds, nor establish a judicial system to enforce the rigour of Shariah.
The fugitives are still coming. In 2014, only 3,000 Nigerian refugees entered Chad, so far this year, 14,000 have made the journey.
Mr Saidu is bitterly realistic about his chances of returning home.
"Boko Haram are just terrorists," he said. “They are not for Islam they are not for anything. They are just for killing people.”
