Over 24 Chadian Soldiers Murdered in Jihadist Attack

On Wednesday, the Nigerian jihadist group Boko Haram killed over 24 Chadian soldiers in the surroundings of Lake Chad in Central Africa.

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The soldiers were attacked while resting after returning from patrolling the lake, which is located on the border between Chad, Niger, Nigeria, and Cameroon. Local authorities are already looking for the crime’s perpetrators.

Since 2015, Lake Chad has been a refuge for the Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP) and the Boko Haram group.

In March 2020, the Boko Haram killed 92 soldiers. This attack was considered the worst aggression against Chad’s Army at the hands of this jihadist group.

In July of that year, Chad's Government began deploying 8,000 troops to suppress the growing jihadist threat, which has displaced nearly 2.4 million people in the Lake Chad basin so far.

In 2002, spiritual leader Mohamed Yusuf created the Boko Haram group to denounce Nigeria’s abandonment of its northern states. At that time, this group only carried out attacks against the Nigerian Police. However, Boko Haram became more radical after 2009, when Yusuf was captured and killed.

Since then, the country’s northeastern region has been plunged into a state of violence provoked by jihadists, who seek to impose an Islamic state on Nigeria, a country whose population is predominantly Muslim in the north and Christian in the south.