Boko Haram IED Attack: Nine Soldiers Killed in Borno Blast
By: Abudu Olalekan
Nine Nigerian soldiers have been confirmed dead after a Boko Haram IED attack near Gubio, Borno State. Several others were injured. Get the full story.
It happened again. Just when you think the roads are getting a little safer, the earth explodes. This time, the tragedy hit near Gubio in Borno State. Nine Nigerian soldiers are gone. Just like that. They were brave men, part of the 145 Damasak under the 5 Brigade in Maiduguri. They were just trying to do their jobs and get back to base. But Boko Haram had other plans. They planted death in the ground and simply waited. It is the cowards way of fighting.
Reportersroom got the details from a top military source on Monday morning. You could tell from the way he spoke that he was shaken. He explained that the soldiers were traveling from Maiduguri town. It was a Saturday when they started the move. They didn’t want to rush through the night, so they stopped at a place called “1 camp” along the road. They figured they would rest, get some sleep, and continue the journey on Sunday. It seemed like a smart plan. But Sunday evening changed everything for those men.
The blast was massive. This wasn’t a gunfight. It wasn’t an ambush where you can at least see your enemy and shoot back. No. This was silent, and then it was very loud. The military source was quite clear. “The incident happened at Gubio, not ambush. It was caused by explosive devices,” he said. Improvised Explosive Devices. IEDs. You don’t even have to be there to kill someone with one of those. You just dig a hole, hide the bomb, and wait for a tire to roll over it.
The numbers are honestly heartbreaking. Eight soldiers died on Sunday right after the explosion or while the medics were trying to save them. Then, another one died just this Monday morning. That brings the total to nine deaths already. But that is not even the full story. Many other soldiers are in the hospital right now. They sustain very serious injury. Some of them might not even make it through the week.
The visuals seen by Reportersroom are too much to describe. You see soldiers lying there. Lifeless. Some of them had severed body parts because of the force of the blast. It shows how powerful those bombs were. It wasn’t a small thing at all. It was a brutal, ugly scene. It makes you wonder how people can be so cruel to plant such things on a road used by human beings.
The Nigerian Army hasn’t said anything official yet. Usually, they are very quiet when things like this happens. Maybe they are still gathering all the informations from the field. Or maybe they are just tired of the constant bad news coming out of the North-East. But the families of these nine men deserve to know exactly what happened. The people in Borno are nervous again. This kind of thing makes everyone jump at shadows. Boko Haram and ISWAP are still very much out there. They use gun trucks sometimes, but these hidden bombs are becoming their favorite tool. It’s cheap and it’s deadly.
This isn’t a one-off thing, either. Just recently in November, there was another bad incident. Suspected ISWAP fighters hit a military convoy in the same region. They killed soldiers and even members of the Civilian Joint Task Force. They even went as far as abducting a serving Brigade Commander. Can you imagine? A whole Commander. It show that the North-East is still a very dangerous war zone. Even if the government says the terrorists are “technically defeated,” the ground tells a very different story.
We really need to do better for our troops. These guys are out there in the heat and the dust. They are protecting us while we sleep. And then they get blown up by a hidden bomb while just traveling between towns. It is so unfair. The military needs better technology to find these IEDs before the trucks drive over them. Until then, the road to Gubio remains a place of death. Nine families are mourning today. Nine chairs will be empty at the dinner table. It is a very sad day for Nigeria.
