Updated Nov. 28, 2023 at 12:00 p.m.
The heartwrenching photograph of innocent farmers’ bodies wrapped after being slaughtered during the Koshebe Massacre by Boko Haram would be an image burned into peoples minds.
Get On This Day In History delivered straight to your inbox ✉️ each day! Sign up here.
What was the Koshebe Massacre?
On November 27, 2020, a member of Boko Haram demanded that a group of farmers working in a rice paddy in northern Nigeria give him food. The farmers knew the risks of working in an area where Boko Haram still operated, but many of them faced death by starvation in their homes, so they had little choice.
Some of the farmers were preparing food for the insurgent, when a group of others began to attack him. The farmers overpowered the Boko Haram gunman and ultimately were able to restrain him and call to have him arrested.
The following day, a swarm of assailants descended upon the rice fields on motorcycles, tying up the farmers and slitting their throats. As many as 110 were killed, and many more were injured in an attempt by Boko Haram to send a message to those who cooperate with Nigerian authorities.
What is Boko Haram?
The Islamic extremist group known as Boko Haram has terrorized parts of Nigeria and other countries neighbors for years, carrying out suicide bombings, shootings, abductions, massacres, and executions, often of civilians and schoolchildren. The Nigerian government waged an ongoing war against insurgent groups like Boko Haram while they continued to lay waste to the Northern part of the country. Despite being “technically defeated” in 2019, according to Nigeria’s president Muhammadu Buhari, Boko Haram was able to commit the massacre.