Jihadists have burnt down an army base in Nigeria. Fifteen soldiers and five members of a local militia have been killed, and several soldiers are missing.
The attack took place on Tuesday night in the village of Mairari in the Lake Chad region of Borno State. This was reported by the AFP news agency.
The suspected group responsible is Islamic State in West Africa, known as ISWAP.
“The terrorists killed 15 soldiers and five civilian anti-jihadist militiamen who were assisting the soldiers during the attack,” said an unnamed military officer.
The jihadists looted weapons and set fire to the base and several vehicles. The soldiers withdrew towards the town of Monguno, 18 kilometres away.
On 1 July, an army base in Mairari was also attacked. At the time, the army stated that the attack had been repelled and that the base had not been breached. Two soldiers and one member of the militia were killed. Three and a half months later, AFP reported that the base in Mairari had been razed to the ground.
The report in the Norwegian media
NTB has reported on the attack. The report consists of four short paragraphs. It makes no mention of the village of Mairari, nor that the base was burnt down, nor that soldiers are missing.
Earlier this week, NTB carried a report on 24 people killed in two attacks in Nigeria – one by bandits in Zamfara and one by suspected jihadists in Niger State. It appeared in Dagsavisen, amongst other publications. In August, iNyheter reported that several dozen people had been killed or abducted by jihadists in the village of Dikera. That story was a rewritten version of an AFP report.
A search for coverage mainly yields short reports from news agencies.
Record figures
Over the past twelve months, 23,872 deaths linked to militant Islamist groups in Africa have been recorded, according to the Africa Centre for Strategic Studies. This is the highest number ever. This is 77 per cent more than in 2021. Around 166,000 people have been killed in acts of Muslim extremist violence in Africa over the past ten years.
The Sahel accounts for 42 per cent of the deaths. The Lake Chad region, where Borno is located, recorded 6,643 deaths, an increase of 60 per cent. Deaths linked to Islamic State in West Africa rose by 85 per cent, from 1,905 to 3,520.
The Global Terrorism Index 2026 ranks Burkina Faso second in the world, Niger third, Nigeria fourth and Mali fifth. Only Pakistan is ranked higher. In Nigeria, 750 people died in terrorist attacks in 2025, 46 per cent more than the previous year. The Sahel accounts for over half of all terrorist deaths worldwide.
AFP reports that Nigeria is experiencing its most violent period in nearly three decades. According to AFP, the second quarter of 2026 was the most violent since ACLED began keeping records in 1997.
Persecution of Christians
According to Open Doors’ World Watch List 2026, 3,490 of the 4,849 Christians killed for their faith worldwide were in Nigeria. Open Doors only counts killings where the victim’s faith is an identifiable factor. The Nigerian government rejects the criticism and states that the country does not condone religious persecution. According to CBS News, analysts believe that Christians are among those affected, but that the majority of victims of armed groups are Muslims in the Muslim north, where most of the attacks take place.
KrF politician Joel Ystebø wrote in *Aftenposten* last August that the persecution of Christians is almost invisible in the Norwegian mainstream media. Ole Petter Erlandsen, director of Open Doors, wrote last November that Christians in the northern Sharia states are six times more likely to be killed than Muslims.
The US has taken action. President Donald Trump placed Nigeria on the US list of countries of particular concern regarding religious freedom, ‘Country of Particular Concern’, on 31 October last year. On Christmas Day, US forces struck Islamic State in Sokoto State. The US Africa Command stated that the attack took place at the request of the Nigerian authorities.
Nor was the attack in Mairari the only one in the past week. AFP reports that around two dozen militants and soldiers were killed in an ISWAP attack on an outpost in the neighbouring district of Kukawa.
