ICC Note: Boko Haram has devastated northern Nigeria and Cameroon with so much violence causing death and displacement that they’re now hungry, desperate for food in the midst of a famine they created. Since the beginning of their 2009 insurgency, Boko Haram violence has displaced more than two million people, mostly Christians, and has killed some 15,000. The ever-present threat has left farmers either scared or unable to cultivate crops to feed the region due to death, displacement, or occupation. Boko Haram represents one of the world’s most deadly threats to the persecuted Church, carrying a history of targeting Christians for murder, rape, and abduction.

By Dionne Searcey

3/4/16 Mora, Cameroon (New York Times) — At first, the attack had all the hallmarks of a typicalBoko Haram assault. Armed fighters stormed a town on the border withNigeria, shooting every man they saw.

But this time, instead of burning homes and abducting hostages, the fighters gathered cows, goats and any kind of food they could round up, then fled with it all.

Boko Haram, the Islamist group terrorizing this part of the world, is on the hunt — for food.

After rampaging across the region for years, forcing more than two million people to flee their homes and farms, Boko Haram appears to be falling victim to a major food crisis of its own creation.

Farmers have fled, leaving behind fallow fields. Herdsmen have rerouted cattle drives to avoid the violence. Throughout the region, entire villages have emptied, leaving a string of ghost towns with few people for Boko Harm to dominate — and little for the group to plunder.

“They need food. They need to eat,” Midjiyawa Bakari, the governor of the Far North region of Cameroon, said of Boko Haram. “They’re stealing everything.”

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