Lake Chad’s Deadly Trap: How Boko Haram and ISWAP Turn Civilians Into Targets

By Globalvoice Investigations

For civilians living around Nigeria’s Lake Chad basin, leaving a displacement camp in search of food, firewood or farmland can amount to a calculated gamble with death.

Families who have already fled insurgent violence often have little choice but to return to the countryside to survive. But in areas where Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) maintain influence, those same civilians may encounter an unofficial system of taxation, movement restrictions and surveillance.

Refuse to pay a levy, travel without permission, cross into territory controlled by a rival faction or become suspected of providing information to Nigerian security forces and the consequences can reportedly be fatal.

Interviews with local residents and community leaders, together with analysis by counter-insurgency researchers, suggest that parts of the Lake Chad basin have evolved into something more complex than conventional insurgent territory.

They resemble a parallel system of control.

Farmers pay for access to farmland. Traders pay to move along roads and waterways. Residents obtain passes to travel. And those suspected of cooperating with the government can be labelled informants or spies.

The result is a deadly contradiction: the civilians most dependent on access to insurgent controlled territory for survival can also be the people most vulnerable to insurgent violence.

Marte: Where Survival Comes at a Price

Marte Local Government Area occupies a strategically important position near Lake Chad and historically served as an agricultural centre.

Today, local leaders say much of its economic life has been destroyed by years of insurgency.

Hon. Aliyu Mai Borno, convener of the Southern Borno Progressives Union, described Marte as an area where government authority has been severely weakened by the presence of Boko Haram and ISWAP.

“Marte is a strategic location that has been completely overrun by ISWAP and Boko Haram terrorists,” he said.

Mai Borno further claimed that government equipment worth more than ?10 billion had effectively been abandoned.

For residents who remain displaced, the consequences extend beyond the loss of homes.

There is little opportunity to farm, trade or earn an income inside many displacement settlements.

Consequently, residents are forced to venture beyond the relative security of camps.

That is where the danger begins.

The ‘Checkpoint Economy’

Shehu Usman Dikwa, a trader familiar with routes around the region, described an informal taxation system imposed by armed groups.

“It is completely illegal to go to a farm or move through the bush without paying taxes to the terrorists,” he said.

According to Dikwa, traders and travellers may be required to pay for what he described as a “gate pass” before travelling through certain routes.

He alleged that people who refuse to pay, cannot afford the levy or are suspected of providing information to security forces can face immediate violence.

Dikwa also disputed the initial death toll following the attack around Ala and Musune, saying 18 people were killed rather than 15.

These claims require independent verification. But if the system described by local sources is accurate, it demonstrates how insurgent groups can exercise authority without formally governing territory.

They do not necessarily need government style institutions.

They need control over movement, access to farmland, waterways and markets and the ability to punish those who violate their rules.

Farmers Paying Insurgents to Farm

The phenomenon is not unique to Marte.

Lake Chad counter-insurgency analyst Zagazola Makama has documented similar arrangements around the Baga and Kukawa axis.

In one account concerning the killing of approximately 40 farmers near Dumba, close to Baga, Makama reported that farmers had negotiated access to agricultural land located deep inside areas controlled by insurgents.

According to his analysis, farmers paid levies and received movement passes and receipts from ISWAP.

The arrangement existed outside the recognised farming areas designated by Nigerian security forces and the Multinational Joint Task Force.

Makama estimated that more than 2,000 farmers and fishermen in the Lake Chad region were operating under the influence or control of Boko Haram or ISWAP, with some paying levies and carrying movement passes.

He also reported that some individuals could become involved in transporting logistics or intelligence for the groups.

This creates a dangerous grey zone.

A farmer may not consider himself a member or supporter of an insurgent organisation. He may simply be paying for access to the land that feeds his family.

But to a government security agency, that transaction may look like cooperation.

To an insurgent faction, payment to a rival group may itself become grounds for punishment.

When Paying the Wrong Group Becomes a Death Sentence

Makama's subsequent reporting highlighted the extraordinary vulnerability of civilians caught between rival insurgent factions.

Following another massacre in northeastern Kukawa, he reported that farmers were paying a fixed agricultural levy around ?10,000 per hectare, in addition to a portion of their harvest.

But some farmers were reportedly killed after ISWAP discovered that they had paid the rival Boko Haram Buduma faction rather than ISWAP.

If accurately documented, the episode reveals a disturbing reality.

For civilians living in contested territory, there may be no neutral choice.

Pay one faction and risk punishment from another.

Refuse to pay and risk being denied access to farmland.

Cooperate with the government and risk being labelled an informant.

Remain in the camp and risk hunger.

Who Does ISWAP Consider an Enemy?

The ideology of the two major insurgent factions also helps explain the danger.

Analyst Brant Philip, who tracks jihadist activity in the Sahel, has argued that Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati wal-Jihad (JAS), commonly known as Boko Haram, and ISWAP have different approaches to defining legitimate targets.

Philip has noted that JAS has historically treated civilians living under Nigerian government authority as apostates, while ISWAP has used its own ideological framework to classify Christians and people suspected of supporting the Nigerian state as legitimate enemies.

The distinction matters because it changes the meaning of civilian status.

In conventional warfare, civilians are protected unless directly participating in hostilities.

Under an insurgent system that equates cooperation with the government with combatant activity, however, a farmer who reports the movement of fighters or a trader who speaks to soldiers can suddenly become an alleged spy.

That accusation can become a death sentence.

The Informant Purge

There are indications that suspected informants have been deliberately targeted.

In December 2025, Philip reported that ISWAP executed two men accused of spying for the Nigerian Army one reportedly seized in Dekwa, Yobe State, and another near Gubio in Borno.

Philip linked the executions to a wider campaign against suspected informants as military pressure on the group increased.

The implication is significant.

When an armed group publicly executes people accused of providing information, it is not merely punishing those individuals.

It is sending a message to everyone else.

Do not talk to the government.

That threat can destroy the intelligence network security forces depend on to locate insurgents.

The Marte Massacre

The danger became particularly visible in Marte.

At least 15 farmers and firewood gatherers were reportedly killed after leaving displacement camps to seek food and fuel around Ala and Musune.

Three others were initially reported missing.

Local sources said the victims were ambushed and executed at close range.

Some sources also alleged that bodies were decapitated, although that particular claim has not been independently verified by Globalvoice.

Borno State Police spokesperson Nahum Daso confirmed that 15 people had been killed and said security forces were working to locate those still missing.

Reuters separately reported that suspected Islamist militants killed villagers who had gone into the bush to collect firewood, while Nigerian troops launched clearance operations.

The significance of the attack is not simply the number killed.

The victims were displaced people attempting to survive.

They were not described as soldiers.

They were civilians who had left an area of relative security because their basic needs could not be met there.

The Violence Extends Across Borders

The pattern also extends beyond Nigeria's borders.

On September 29, 2026, 17 villagers, including a local chief, were reportedly killed in Konduga Local Government Area, according to local accounts.

Dikwa attributed the attack to ISWAP.

A day earlier, 15 people were reportedly killed in Digimsilio in Cameroon's Far North Region, close to the Logone River basin.

According to Dikwa, residents had allegedly raised security concerns and warned the Multinational Joint Task Force and Cameroonian security authorities before the attack.

An alleged ISWAP letter obtained by Globalvoice reportedly warned residents that anyone assisting government forces would be treated as an enemy.

The letter's authenticity and the identity of its authors require independent verification.

But its alleged message is consistent with a wider insurgent strategy documented by analysts: discourage civilian cooperation with the state by making the consequences of cooperation visible and brutal.

The Intelligence Trap

This may be one of the most damaging consequences of the insurgent taxation system.

The Nigerian military and the Multinational Joint Task Force depend heavily on information from local communities.

Residents know the terrain.

They know who has entered a village.

They know unusual movements.

They may know which paths connect farms to waterways.

But if reporting an insurgent sighting could result in execution, families have a powerful incentive to remain silent.

That creates a vicious cycle.

Insurgents threaten civilians → civilians stop cooperating with authorities → security forces lose local intelligence → insurgents operate with greater freedom → attacks increase → civilians become even more fearful.

In this environment, insurgents do not need to control every village physically.

Fear can perform part of the work for them.

Amnesty Calls for Protection of Civilians

Amnesty International has condemned the killings in Marte and called on Nigerian authorities to take immediate measures to protect vulnerable rural communities.

The organisation also stressed the need for responses consistent with human rights obligations.

That raises another challenge for the government.

Military operations are necessary to confront armed insurgents, but civilians living in contested territory must also be protected from reprisals and collective punishment.

A strategy focused solely on killing insurgents may therefore leave the underlying vulnerability intact if displaced communities remain unable to farm, fish, trade or safely return home.

The Real Cost of the Lake Chad Conflict

The Lake Chad crisis is increasingly difficult to describe simply as a contest between the Nigerian military and insurgent groups.

It is also a struggle over who controls food, movement, land and information.

Boko Haram and ISWAP do not merely attack communities.

Where they have sufficient influence, they can regulate access to economic activity.

They can impose taxes.

They can issue passes.

They can punish perceived disobedience.

And they can decide who is considered a civilian and who is considered an enemy.

For displaced families, that creates an almost impossible choice.

Stay inside a camp and struggle to obtain food and income.

Leave to farm and risk an ambush.

Pay an insurgent levy and risk being branded a collaborator.

Refuse to pay and potentially lose access to the land.

Report insurgent movements to security forces and risk retaliation.

A War in Which Survival Can Look Like Collaboration

This is perhaps the most important lesson emerging from the Lake Chad killings.

The line between civilian survival and alleged collaboration has become dangerously blurred.

A farmer paying a levy may be trying to feed his children.

A trader carrying a movement pass may simply be trying to reach a market.

A resident speaking to soldiers may be trying to protect his community.

But within the logic of an insurgent controlled territory, each action can be interpreted as cooperation with an enemy.

That is how ordinary civilians become targets.

And that is why the latest massacres should not be viewed only as isolated acts of violence.

They are symptoms of a larger struggle over territory, resources, movement and information one in which civilians are trapped between an insurgency that demands obedience and a state that has yet to consistently provide the security needed for them to live independently of that system.

For Nigeria, the strategic question is no longer simply how many insurgents can be eliminated.

It is whether the government can restore enough security for farmers, fishermen, traders and displaced families to earn a living without paying armed groups for permission to survive.