Nigeria After Militant Attack: Thousands Of Refugees Move, Investigation Begins And National Day Of Mourning

Mass burial in Zabarmari (Ahmed Kingimi / Reuters, ANTARA)

JAKARTA - Nigeria has announced three days of national mourning. This procession is related to the massacre of one hundred civilians in two villages in the western region of the country.

The series of attacks was carried out by militant groups. The government says an investigation has been launched to find the perpetrators.

Witnesses said more than a hundred armed assailants on motorbikes surrounded the village and started shooting indiscriminately. The incident happened Saturday, January 2.

The government says reinforcements have been sent to an area near the border region of Nigeria, Burkina Faso and Mali known as Liptako-Gourma. These points have become an area flooded with militants affiliated with al Qaeda and ISIS.

The attacks highlight the fragile security of West Africa's Sahel region, in Nigeria in particular, ahead of the country's presidential elections on February 21. The weekend's killings were among the worst in Nigerian history.

The attack forced the survivors and residents from four neighboring villages to flee. The United Nations (UN) Refugee Agency said at least a thousand people were moving from the area, trying to reach the city of Ouallam which is about 80 kilometers away.

Many travel on foot, the UN agency added. Nigeria, Burkina Faso and Mali are at the epicenter of one of the world's fastest-growing refugee and protection crises, hosting 851,000 refugees and nearly 2 million people internally displaced.