ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — Militants enforcing a separatist lockdown in Nigeria’s southeastern region attacked security forces deployed to restore order, killing five soldiers and six civilians in a gun battle, the Nigerian military said Friday.
The soldiers were attacked on Thursday at a checkpoint in Aba town in Abia state, where the separatists are enforcing a lockdown to commemorate the short-lived Republic of Biafra that fought and lost a deadly civil war in 1967 to gain independence from Nigeria, defense spokesman said. Maj. Gen. Edward Buba in a statement.
The separatist group Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB). often uses lockdowns to push for the creation of an independent country in the southeast, decades after the war that killed at least a million people. Hundreds have been killed in recent years in such violent lockdowns and other attacks blamed on the group, which claims its secessionist campaign is peaceful.
The Nigerian army had deployed soldiers to enforce peace in the city of Aba when the militants “launched a surprise attack” on their security post, the defense spokesman said. “Six civilians (also) died in the crossfire,” Buba said.
He added that the Nigerian Army is overstretched other security crises in other parts of the country they would not give in to the hunt for the perpetrators. “We would exert overwhelming military pressure on the group to ensure their total defeat,” he said.
In addition to their separatist campaign, the IPOB group is also demanding the release of their leader Nnamdi Kanuwho is being prosecuted on charges of treason and terrorism.
Nigeria’s southeast, once one of the safest in the country, is now grappling with violence and deepening poverty as violent lockdowns have a negative impact on economic activities in the region.