Shifting the Spotlight; Boko Haram
More than a million people in Paris and many more around the world have rallied in light of the Charlie Hebdo tragedy that occurred only less than a week ago to pay their respects to the people who lost their lives to Al Qaeda. And that is only for the death of 17 people under the rampaging onslaught of gunfire and praises to Allah.
On the 3rd of January, only four days before said tragedy, thousands of kilometres away from the Parisian homeland, the Jihadist Nigerian-based movement Boko Haram took over the town of Baga after a second attack on said town to be used as a military base to fight against the Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF) that are trying to control the borders of the multiple central African countries.
Boko Haram in the process razed everything in their way with rocket-propelled grenade launchers and assault rifles, killing everyone in their path who was too slow to escape the slaughter and burning down the entire town in the process. Approximately 2,000 people, most of which consisted of women, children and the elderly, were thought to have been murdered in the rampage of Boko Haram, only a hundred of which were confirmed deceased.
“I saw them kill my father, they slaughtered him like a ram. And up until now I don't know where my mother is” –Suleiman Dauda, one of the survivors of the Boko Haram attacks
The human carnage was enormous, and according to Muhammad Abba Gava, a civilian spokesman for the defence against terrorist groups, the civilian fighters gave up on counting the bodies. “No one could attend to the corpses and even the seriously injured ones who may have died by now.”
It seems that given the proximity of the two events, one seems to be overriding the other in terms of how the issue is treated. A single event where only a small group of terrorists targeted an offensive cartoon, eclipsing one of the greatest massacres in Nigerian history ever since the Gwoza massacre. Despite the circumstances under which the Charlie Hebdo attacks occurred, the fact still remains that a human carnage remained almost ignored because of another event. This sort of situation has happened multiple times, when the news stories would not grab any attention because they are too frequent, so they are not given as much attention. The fact remains that the victims that are subdued by such terrorism desperately need help from other nations, and the public must be made aware of the lives that are being lost. This is one effective way of helping these people, by pressuring the supranational states such as the UN to help the situation and ultimately help stop the carnage.
More than a million people in Paris and many more around the world have rallied in light of the Charlie Hebdo tragedy that occurred only less than a week ago to pay their respects to the people who lost their lives to Al Qaeda. And that is only for the death of 17 people under the rampaging onslaught of gunfire and praises to Allah.
On the 3rd of January, only four days before said tragedy, thousands of kilometres away from the Parisian homeland, the Jihadist Nigerian-based movement Boko Haram took over the town of Baga after a second attack on said town to be used as a military base to fight against the Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF) that are trying to control the borders of the multiple central African countries.
Boko Haram in the process razed everything in their way with rocket-propelled grenade launchers and assault rifles, killing everyone in their path who was too slow to escape the slaughter and burning down the entire town in the process. Approximately 2,000 people, most of which consisted of women, children and the elderly, were thought to have been murdered in the rampage of Boko Haram, only a hundred of which were confirmed deceased.
“I saw them kill my father, they slaughtered him like a ram. And up until now I don't know where my mother is” –Suleiman Dauda, one of the survivors of the Boko Haram attacks
The human carnage was enormous, and according to Muhammad Abba Gava, a civilian spokesman for the defence against terrorist groups, the civilian fighters gave up on counting the bodies. “No one could attend to the corpses and even the seriously injured ones who may have died by now.”
It seems that given the proximity of the two events, one seems to be overriding the other in terms of how the issue is treated. A single event where only a small group of terrorists targeted an offensive cartoon, eclipsing one of the greatest massacres in Nigerian history ever since the Gwoza massacre. Despite the circumstances under which the Charlie Hebdo attacks occurred, the fact still remains that a human carnage remained almost ignored because of another event. This sort of situation has happened multiple times, when the news stories would not grab any attention because they are too frequent, so they are not given as much attention. The fact remains that the victims that are subdued by such terrorism desperately need help from other nations, and the public must be made aware of the lives that are being lost. This is one effective way of helping these people, by pressuring the supranational states such as the UN to help the situation and ultimately help stop the carnage.
Karl Bartolo
