Maiduguri, Nigeria — Fighters from the Boko Haram group killed 18 loggers in northeastern Nigeria Borno State on May 7, local sources confirmed on May 8, 2026, in an attack that underscores the deepening humanitarian crisis facing communities displaced by years of jihadist violence.
According to witnesses and members of a local anti-jihadist militia, Boko Haram fighters on motorcycles intercepted a group of loggers who had ventured into the bush outside the village of Abaram in Bama District. The fighters rounded up the men and opened fire, then pursued those who tried to flee deeper into the bush.
We recovered 11 bodies yesterday and seven more today, making a total of 18 killed in the attack, said Ibrahim Liman, a member of the civilian militia working alongside the Nigerian military. Initially, we thought only 11 were killed but when others did not show up this morning a search was launched and seven more bodies were found.
The seven victims found on Thursday had been chased into the bush and shot as they attempted to escape, making it difficult to locate them sooner, said Bukar Ibrahim, a resident of the town of Bama who confirmed the same toll. All victims died from gunshot wounds.
Boko Haram and its rival faction, the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), have increasingly targeted civilians in the northeast whose economic activities they consider suspicious. Loggers, farmers, fishermen, herders, and metal scrap collectors have all been killed on accusations of spying or collaborating with the military. The pattern has intensified as the groups lose territory to Nigerian and multinational military operations, forcing them to rely more heavily on intimidation and control of civilian populations inside areas they no longer fully hold.
Tens of thousands have been killed and millions displaced across the 17-year insurgency, which began in 2009. Most of the displaced now live in makeshift camps where they depend on food handouts from international charities. But with international aid funding sharply reduced following changes in donor priorities, many of those camps are no longer receiving sufficient supplies.
To feed their families, some of the displaced have turned to whatever income-generating activities they can find — including felling the sparse vegetation for wood to sell as fuel. It was precisely such economic desperation that appears to have drawn the loggers killed on Wednesday back into the bush, according to local sources.
The attack came just days after Chad declared a 20-day state of emergency in its Lake Chad region following a wave of deadly Boko Haram and ISWAP attacks that killed at least 26 Chadian soldiers, including two senior generals. The regional dimension of the conflict has become increasingly visible in recent months, with cross-border raids and coordinated operations stretching from Nigeria through Chad and into Niger.
Nigeria military has pushed Boko Haram out of many of the towns and villages it once controlled, but the groups retain significant operational capacity in rural areas, forests, and islands on Lake Chad, where they can regroup and launch attacks with relative impunity. The attack on the loggers, in a forested area outside a town still under government control, illustrates how far the militants reach even in relatively secured zones.