Baga is a town in the northeastern Nigerian state of Borno, close to

Lake Chad Lake Chad (french: Lac Tchad) is a historically large, shallow, endorheic lake in Central Africa, which has varied in size over the centuries. According to the ''Global Resource Information Database'' of the United Nations Environment Programme, ...

, and lying northeast of the town of

Kukawa Kukawa (previously Kuka) is a town and Local Government Area in the northeastern Nigerian state of Borno, close to Lake Chad. The town was founded in 1814 as capital of the Kanem-Bornu Empire by the Muslim scholar and warlord Muhammad al-Amin al ...

. It is located within the Kukawa

Local Government Area A local government area (LGA) is an administrative division of a country that a local government is responsible for. The size of an LGA varies by country but it is generally a subdivision of a State (administrative division), state, province, divi ...

. The town is approximately 196 km from

Maiduguri Maiduguri is the capital and the largest city of Borno State Borno State is a state in the North-East geopolitical zone of Nigeria, bordered by Yobe to the west, Gombe to the southwest, and Adamawa to the south while its eastern border form ...

, the capital of Borno State.Mukhtar, Yakubu and Waziri A. Gazali. The Dynamics of Fish Trade in North-East Nigeria: A Case Study of Doron Baga, ''Berichte des Sonderforschungsbereichs'' 268, Band 14, Frankfurt a.M. 2000: 83-91 The "Doron Baga" fish market, as of 2000, was located about six kilometres from the town. Baga used to lie on the border of Lake Chad and was a fishing center itself in the 1960s and 1970s, but the diminishing size of the lake has caused fishermen to move, and others have turned to subsistence farming.Idris, Hamza et al. (30 June 201
Nigeria: Northern Communities Losing Territory to Desert
''

Daily Trust Media Trust is a privately held Nigerian newspaper publishing company based in Abuja that publishes the English-language ''Daily Trust'', ''Weekly Trust'', ''Sunday Trust'' and the Hausa-language ''Aminiya'' newspapers, as well as a new pan-Afric ...

'' (AllAfrica.com)Bomford, Andrew (14 April 2006)
Slow death of Africa's Lake Chad
'' BBC News'' ("Just 30 years ago, water covered the whole area. Baga was a waterfront town. Now it is stranded many miles from the lake as the land around it becomes desert.")Murray, Senan (15 January 2007)
Lake Chad fisherman pack up their nets
'' BBC News'' The town and the nearby naval base have been under the control by the

Islamic State's West Africa Province Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God (or '' Allah'') as it was revealed to Muhammad, the mai ...

since December 2018.

Baga massacres

2013 Baga massacre

In April 2013, over 185 people were killed and over 2000 homes in Baga were destroyed as a result of fighting between the Nigerian military and the

Boko Haram Boko Haram, officially known as ''Jamā'at Ahl as-Sunnah lid-Da'wah wa'l-Jihād'' ( ar, جماعة أهل السنة للدعوة والجهاد, lit=Group of the People of Sunnah for Dawah and Jihad), is an Islamic terrorist organization ...

Islamist group.

2015 Baga massacre

In January 2015, Boko Haram again attacked the town, seizing it and the military base used by a multinational force set up to fight them. The town was burned and the people massacred perhaps 2000 deaths the largest such massacre in Boko Haram's history. Some residents escaped to nearby

Chad Chad (; ar, تشاد , ; french: Tchad, ), officially the Republic of Chad, '; ) is a landlocked country at the crossroads of North and Central Africa. It is bordered by Libya to the north, Sudan to the east, the Central African Republic ...

. Although according to the Nigerian Ministry of Defence no more than 150 people in total had been killed, including militants. Several government officials denied that the fatalities were as extensive as reported, with some even claiming that the massacre had never taken place or that the Nigerian military had repelled the militants from the region, a claim that was refuted by local officials, survivors, and the international media. Satellite imagery taken on 2 and 7 January was released by Amnesty International showing that in Baga, which is "less than two square kilometres in size, approximately 620 structures were damaged or completely destroyed by fire." In Doron Baga (or Doro Gowon), located about 2.5 km away, fishing boats present on the 2nd were no longer visible, and "more than 3,100 structures were damaged or destroyed by fire affecting most of the 4 square kilometre town."Amnesty International.
Nigeria: Satellite Images Show Horrific Scale of Boko Haram Attack On Baga
'' allAfrica.com, January 15, 2015

2018

On 27 December, Boko Haram attacked a military base in the town of Baga, killing 10 people and according to some reports, Boko Haram may have taken over the town.

References

{{reflist Populated places in Borno State