Nigeria
Nigeria ( ), , ig, Naìjíríyà, yo, Nàìjíríà, pcm, Naijá , ff, Naajeeriya, kcg, Naijeriya officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf o ...
n state of Borno. It is located near the confluence of the Yobe River and
Komadugu Gana River
The Komadugu Gana River or Misau River is a river in the Chad Basin in northeastern Nigeria that joins the Yobe River at Damasak, in the Mobbar Local Government Area of Borno State.Mortimore, MichaelAdapting to Drought: Farmers, Famines, and Des ...
Niger
)
, official_languages =
, languages_type = National languagesGubio and
Maiduguri
Maiduguri is the capital and the largest city of Borno State in north-eastern Nigeria. The city sits along the seasonal Ngadda River which disappears into the ''Firki'' swamps in the areas around Lake Chad. Maiduguri was founded in 1907 as a mil ...
, the capital of Borno State, and the other heads east towards
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 ...
northern Nigeria
Northern Nigeria was an autonomous division within Nigeria, distinctly different from the southern part of the country, with independent customs, foreign relations and security structures. In 1962 it acquired the territory of the British Nort ...
BBC News
BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broad ...
Idris Alooma
Idris Alooma, Idris ibn 'Ali (Alooma), or Idriss Alaoma, (r. 1570–1602/03 or 1580–1617) was Mai (king) of the Kanem-Bornu Empire, located mainly in Chad, Cameroon, Niger and Nigeria. His name is more properly written Idris Alawma or Idris Alau ...
Graham Connah
Graham Edward Connah (born 11 August 1934) is a British-born archaeologist who has worked extensively in Britain, West Africa and Australia.
Connah was born in Cheshire, UK on 11 August 1934, and educated at Wirral Grammar School, and Cambridge ...
visited the area in 1965 and a group of local men reported that the present site of Damasak is about 1 km west of its prior location (where mounds can be found), and which they reported was abandoned in the first half of the 1800s but had been occupied for approximately 100 years.Three Thousand Years in Africa p. 200 (1981)
German explorer
Heinrich Barth
Johann Heinrich Barth (; ; 16 February 1821 – 25 November 1865) was a German explorer of Africa and scholar.
Barth is thought to be one of the greatest of the European explorers of Africa, as his scholarly preparation, ability to speak and wri ...
(1821-1865) reported in the 1850s that Damasak (spelled as Dammasak) could still be identified from a basin of the river named after it, but that it was currently called "Fatoghana". He also reports that Edris, the King of Bornu from 1353–76, died at Damasak according to some accounts.Travels and discoveries in North and Central Africa, Vol. II p. 585 (1857)
In March 2015, at least 70 dead bodies were found outside the town. They were discovered soon after the town had been retaken from Boko Haram. On 24 March 2015, residents said that Boko Haram had
kidnapped
Kidnapped may refer to:
* subject to the crime of kidnapping
Literature
* ''Kidnapped'' (novel), an 1886 novel by Robert Louis Stevenson
* ''Kidnapped'' (comics), a 2007 graphic novel adaptation of R. L. Stevenson's novel by Alan Grant and Ca ...
more than 400 women and children from the town as they fled from coalition forces earlier in the month.