killed in a besieged city in Nigeria's northeast, an official said
Friday, exacerbating security concerns for foreign workers in
Nigeria's violence-wracked northeast, while an overnight raid in a
nearby city left 5 others dead and several schools razed to the
ground.
Gunmen shot the Chinese builder Friday morning on a main road that had
been undergoing reconstruction in the city of Maiduguri, said the
Borno State ministry of works spokesman Babakura Bukar.
He said it was not immediately clear if the Chinese national had
survived the bullet wound, but a hospital source that requested
anonymity because he is not allowed to speak to press said that the
hospital received the dead body of a Chinese man at about noon Friday.
An Associated Press reporter who went to the construction site on
Lagos Street said all workers, Chinese and Nigerian, had deserted it
Friday afternoon. With the road partly excavated, there remained only
a narrow lane for motorists to use. Lagos Street is the main link to
the busy neighborhood that houses the state's university.
Bukar could not say when or if the construction workers would return
and the Chinese embassy could not immediately be reached for comment
Friday.
The incident comes about two weeks after a Chinese cook for another
construction company was shot dead while shopping at a food market in
a town outside Maiduguri.
Several Chinese construction companies operate in Nigeria. In Borno
state, most, if not all, government-funded projects are being
undertaken by Chinese companies.
The region is largely rural but, with a growing and increasingly
urbanized population, there has been a greater need for basic
infrastructure, such as roads and offices. For years, foreigners
including Chinese, Lebanese, Indians, and others, have run businesses
or worked in construction in Nigeria's once-peaceful arid north as
well as its central plains.
In recent years, however, a locally focused Islamist sect known as
Boko Haram has engaged in a deadly campaign that has left more than
680 dead this year alone across northern Nigeria, accorded to an
Associated Press count.
The group has said it seeks the strict implementation of Islamic
Shariah law in a West African nation evenly divided between Muslims
and Christians. As the government struggles to contain the violence,
the group continues to constrict and threaten millions of people's
lives, especially in Maiduguri, Boko Haram's spiritual home, and
surrounding areas.
In Potiskum, a city 140 miles (230 kilometers) west of Maiduguri, an
Associated Press reporter saw two corpses in a car and three others
lying on the road Friday morning after gunshots and blasts echoed
throughout Thursday night. He also counted five burned down primary
schools; two Islamic schools and three public ones. Similar raids have
previously been blamed on Boko Haram, but local police could not
immediately be reached for comment Friday.
Except for last year's Aug. 26 attack on the United Nations
headquarters in Abuja, which killed 25 people, including a Norwegian,
a Kenyan and an Ivorian, Boko Haram has not appeared to have a
specific interest in foreign targets and there was no claim of
responsibility Friday for the Chinese worker's killing.
However, over the last year, a series of attacks in northern Nigeria
have claimed the lives of foreigners.
In May, gunmen in Kaduna state shot and killed a Lebanese and a
Nigerian construction worker, while kidnapping another Lebanese
employee. Later that month, kidnappers shot a German hostage dead
during a rescue operation. Gunmen who authorities say have links to
Boko Haram also kidnapped an Italian and a British man last year in
northern Kebbi State. The sect later denied taking part in the
abduction.
Previously, it was Nigeria's oil-rich delta that posed the highest
threat to expatriate workers who mostly worked in the oil sector. Oil
militancy there led to frequent kidnappings and attacks on oil
infrastructure until a government-sponsored amnesty program brought
relative peace to the region.
No comments:
Post a Comment