Modu Bintumi was sleeping peacefully with his wife and eight children that Tuesday when, just before dawn, they were jolted awake with the news that Boko Haram was about to raid their village in Borno State, northeastern Nigeria.
He quickly carried a wheelbarrow with some of his children inside to flee.
“We left everything behind and fled,” he recounted, adding that they have not returned since.
The family travelled for two days before reaching Maiduguri, the state capital. “We had nothing to eat during that time. We survived by finding ways to make do in the forest. From there, we went to Mamuri before finally arriving here,” he said.
Like many others in the community who fled that night, Modu left behind his livelihood, that is, his farms, which he described as his “main concern”. “We want to go back and check on our farms and retrieve our belongings, but I am afraid,” he added.
Modu’s life has changed since he fled. He once had a steady daily routine: waking up in the morning, eating, going to the farm, returning home to bathe, visiting friends, and praying. Now in Maiduguri, he spends most of his days lost in restless thought, reflecting on the life he left behind and the farms that once sustained him.
“I had planted millet, groundnuts, beans, and other crops, but I fear that most of them have spoiled by now. I keep thinking of my valuables, and that’s why I’m looking worried and slimming,” he said, adding that fleeing has cost him around ₦5 million.
“We need the government to help us according to its capacity,” Modu told HumAngle.
HumAngle reached out to the Borno State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) to enquire about any response plans for the affected populations. There had been no response yet at press time.
For Falmata Ahmed, the loss cuts even deeper. Her husband has been missing since the attack. He fled moments before Boko Haram stormed in and has not returned since. Now, living alone and caring for her three children. She longs to return to her village not only to resume her life but also to search for her missing husband.
“I am hoping to see my husband,” she said.
“We’re currently waiting for our village to become peaceful so we can return to our farms,” Falmata added. “If the situation doesn’t normalise, we’ll have to stay here. Our main desire is to have access to our farms and return to our village when it’s safe.”
The influx of displaced people into Maiduguri and other major towns has increased since the beginning of 2025 as Boko Haram’s continuous violence sweeps through villages and repatriated communities in the region.
In August alone, the terror group attacked more than ten villages in Magumeri Local Government Area, ransacking homes. Thousands of families have been forced to flee, abandoning their ripening crops, destroyed homes, and looted communities, and are now scattered in search of safety, food, and shelter.
One of the terrorised villages is Kriwari, where Falmata and Modu fled from. Its 65-year-old head, Bulama Umara Kanami, and his three wives and 28 children, watched as the terrorists stormed in on motorcycles, firing shots and scattering the entire community.
Bulama said “no single person remained” in the village of over 1000 households.
Listing other villages that had been emptied, Bulama named Malabari, Borkawuri, Bulumdi, Kurumri, Sadiri, Abachari, Abchuri, Titiya, and several others.
“We were all chased away with our children,” Bulama said.
Although traumatising, he said their ordeal in Kriwari was mild compared to what other villages experienced that day, as the terrorists launched simultaneous attacks across multiple communities in the area. At least eight people from Bulama’s village were abducted during the attack, he said. It is, however, unconfirmed if Falamata’s husband was among them.
The attacks took place in the first week of August, right at the peak of the farming season. Crops had already begun sprouting, while others were nearing maturity.
Like Modu and Falmata, Bulama’s deepest regret is abandoning his farm just as the crops ripened. “We left our beans, maize, millet, and groundnuts,” he lamented. “I cultivated a large area inherited from my parents and grandparents. Personally, I lost about ₦8 million. Still, we have faith in God, but we will also be glad if the government can help.”
Since the attack, he said, people have dispersed across Maiduguri, staying with relatives, friends, or setting up makeshift shelters in host communities.
“Actually, my people are in a critical condition due to a lack of good accommodation. Some ran but couldn’t reach here. They were sleeping in the farm among trees, still hiding,” Bulama said. “What I want is for my people to have something to eat and have shelter. This is what I want.”
When HumAngle visited some of the displaced families in Maiduguri, the living conditions were dire. Villagers had fled with nothing but the clothes on their backs. Only a few, they said, had received clothes from kind residents in the host communities.
The series of violence that swept through Magumeri adds to recent attacks, including the killings of at least 60 residents in Darajamal, a community in Bama Local Government Area, just weeks after the attacks in Magumeri. These cases simply indicated sustained Boko Haram violent campaigns targeting rural villages that have been steadily uprooting communities, deepening hunger, and fuelling displacement in areas already struggling with insecurity and fragile humanitarian conditions.
According to Bulama, Kriwari, like some of the other villages, had no form of state security services like the army and members of the Civilian Joint Task Force. Even Babagana Zulum, the state governor, recently admitted that “the numerical strength of the military is not enough to cover everywhere,” leaving communities exposed with little or no protection.
For Bulama, the recent displacement is painfully familiar. “We were displaced about three times before. However, the previous times, we were able to come back and take our belongings and eventually resettled, but this time, we are afraid to go back,” he said.
Boko Haram launched a four-hour assault on Kirawa, a border community in Gwoza Local Government Area of Borno State, northeastern Nigeria, on Saturday night, Aug. 7, displacing hundreds and leaving a trail of destruction.
Buba Aji, a schoolteacher at Kirawa Central Primary School, had just settled in for a quiet evening with his family. After dinner, they all retired to bed. The beginning of the night was marked by the usual rainy-season chorus of croaking frogs and deep silence. But at about 9 p.m., Buba began to hear distant gunfire. Thirty minutes later, the sounds grew louder and closer.
“Before we knew it, the entire town was filled with the sounds of heavy blasts and gunfire. We could clearly distinguish the exchange of shots between Boko Haram and the soldiers at the barracks. That’s when we knew it was an attack,” he recalled.
Like many residents, Buba fled with his family toward the border between Kirawa and Kerawa in Cameroon, joining hundreds of others fleeing their homes. “It was chaotic, we could see Cameroonian soldiers and members of the Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF) driving in to take positions,” Buba told HumAngle.
While some families crossed into Cameroon, others remained at the border gate, seeking safety alongside some of the military personnel. Locals who spoke to HumAngle said that the Boko Haram fighters set fire to the house of the community head, looted properties, and burned civilian trucks and homes during the raid. At the MNJTF post, where the fierce battle took place, some military facilities and vehicles were set ablaze or damaged.
Amid the chaos, they abducted a teenage girl, Aisha Mohammed Aja. She recently completed her Junior Secondary School examinations and was awaiting her results.
Local sources reported that four soldiers were killed in the attack and that no residents died, but HumAngle has been unable to verify this with local authorities.
Kirawa has endured repeated Boko Haram attacks since it was first overrun in August 2014, forcing residents to flee to Cameroon and other parts of Borno. After residents were repatriated in 2022, the community has suffered multiple attacks this year alone, including deadly raids in February and July. Each attack follows a similar pattern, targeting both military and civilians.
Last year, HumAngle reported extensively on the unsettling realities facing displaced families resettled in Kirawa, who, even a year after their return, continue to face insecurity, poverty, government neglect, and continued displacement.
Vietnam is expecting 500mm of rainfall as Typhoon Wipha approaches the northern coast after skirting the Philippines, where five people were killed and several are missing.
Rainfall and flooding, which left five people dead and displaced thousands over the weekend, have continued in the Philippines following Typhoon Wipha, which is now barrelling towards the coast of northern Vietnam as a severe tropical storm.
As of 6am local time in Vietnam on Tuesday (23:00 GMT), Wipha was situated 60km (37 miles) off the coast of Haiphong City, with wind speeds of up to 102 kph (63 mph), and was moving southwest at a speed of 15 kph (9.3 mph), according to Vietnam’s national weather forecast agency.
No casualties or damage have been reported so far, while an estimated 350,000 Vietnamese soldiers are on standby as the country’s weather agency expects up to 500mm (20 inches) of rainfall, which could cause dangerous flooding and landslides.
Expected to make landfall in Hung Yen and Ninh Binh provinces, located south of the capital, Hanoi, Wipha is forecast to weaken to a low-pressure event on Tuesday night, the agency said.
Floodwaters driven by torrential rains in the aftermath of Typhoon Wipha brought much of life in the Philippine capital, Manila, to a halt on Tuesday, with tens of thousands evacuated from their homes and at least two people believed missing.
Schools and government offices remained closed in Manila and surrounding provinces after a night of rain that saw the region’s Marikina River burst its banks.
More than 23,000 people living along the river were evacuated and took shelter in schools, village halls and covered courtyards. Another 25,000 more were evacuated in the metropolitan area’s Quezon and Caloocan cities.
An elderly woman and her driver were swept down a swollen stream as they attempted to cross a bridge in Caloocan, John Paul Nietes, an emergency operations centre assistant supervisor, told the AFP news agency.
“Their car was recovered last night. The rescue operation is continuing, but as of today, they haven’t found either of them,” he said.
According to the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council in the Philippines, five people have been reported killed as of Monday, and at least another five were reported injured following Typhoon Wipha, local news outlet Enquirer.net reported. Seven people are also missing, according to the council.
At least 20 storms or typhoons strike or come near the Philippines each year, with the country’s poorest regions typically the hardest hit. Their impact has become more deadly and destructive as storms grow more powerful due to climate change.
Earlier this year, Super Typhoon Yagi hit Vietnam, killing about 300 people and causing some $3.3bn in damage.