Rann is a town in
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 forms part of the national border with Cameroon, its northern border ...
,
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 ...
, adjacent to the
border
Borders are usually defined as geographical boundaries, imposed either by features such as oceans and terrain, or by political entities such as governments, sovereign states, federated states, and other subnational entities. Political borders c ...
with
Cameroon
Cameroon (; french: Cameroun, ff, Kamerun), officially the Republic of Cameroon (french: République du Cameroun, links=no), is a country in west-central Africa. It is bordered by Nigeria to the west and north; Chad to the northeast; the C ...
. It was home to a camp for
internally displaced people
An internally displaced person (IDP) is someone who is forced to leave their home but who remains within their country's borders. They are often referred to as refugees, although they do not fall within the legal definitions of a refugee.
A ...
.
History
Rann is one of the localities in north-eastern Nigeria that have become accessible to
humanitarian organization
An aid agency, also known as development charity, is an organization dedicated to distributing aid. Many professional aid organisations exist, both within government, between governments as multilateral donors and as private voluntary organization ...
s. Emergency assistance is gradually being increased in areas that were previously unreachable. In Rann, around 43,000 people are internally displaced and struggle with serious food shortages and severe acute
malnutrition
Malnutrition occurs when an organism gets too few or too many nutrients, resulting in health problems. Specifically, it is "a deficiency, excess, or imbalance of energy, protein and other nutrients" which adversely affects the body's tissues a ...
. Humanitarian access to the area has been difficult due to insecurity and bad roads, as stated by
in its press release.
On 17 January 2017, the
Nigerian Air Force
The Nigerian Air Force (NAF) is the air branch of the Nigerian Armed Forces. It is the youngest branch of the Nigerian Armed Forces.
It is one of the largest in Africa, consisting of about 15,000 personnel and aircraft including eight Chinese Che ...
mistakenly
bombed the camp, leaving at least 52 people dead and over 100 injured.
On 14 January 2019, Rann was overrun by
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 ...
insurgent
An insurgency is a violent, armed rebellion against authority waged by small, lightly armed bands who practice guerrilla warfare from primarily rural base areas. The key descriptive feature of insurgency is its asymmetric warfare, asymmetric na ...
s amid a
general increase of insurgent attacks in the area, and destroyed, with many inhabitants fleeing across the border to
Bodo Bodo may refer to:
Ethnicity
* Boro people, an ethno-linguistic group mainly from Northwest Assam, India
* Bodo-Kachari people, an umbrella group from Nepal, India and Bangladesh that includes the Bodo people
Culture and language
* Boro cu ...
in
Cameroon
Cameroon (; french: Cameroun, ff, Kamerun), officially the Republic of Cameroon (french: République du Cameroun, links=no), is a country in west-central Africa. It is bordered by Nigeria to the west and north; Chad to the northeast; the C ...
.
At the time, the town had been home to 35,000 refugees. Though the attack was initially attributed to
Abu Musab al-Barnawi
Abu Musab al-Barnawi, born Habib Yusuf, is or was a Nigerian Islamic militant who served as the leader of the Islamic State's branch in West Africa (ISWAP) between August 2016 and March 2019, and again around May 2021. He also served in various ...
's
ISWAP,
Abubakar Shekau
Abu Mohammed Abubakar al-Sheikawi (also known by the alias ''Darul Akeem wa Zamunda Tawheed'', or ''Darul Tawheed''; "the abode of monotheism"; born 1965, 1969 or 1975 – 19 May 2021) was a Kanuri man known as the leader of Boko Haram, a Nigeri ...
's Boko Haram later claimed responsibility.
Though the
Nigerian military
The Nigerian Armed Forces (NAF) are the combined military forces of Nigeria. It consists of three uniformed service branches: the Nigerian Army, Nigerian Navy, and Nigerian Air Force. The President of Nigeria functions as the commander-in-chief o ...
and allied
Cameroonian Armed Forces
The Cameroon Armed Forces (french: Forces armées camerounaises (FAC)) are the military of the Republic of Cameroon. The armed forces number 40,000 personnel in ground, air, and naval forces. There are approximately 40,000 troops in the army acr ...
forces subsequently retook Rann, they later abandoned it, so Boko Haram launched another raid against the town on 28 January 2019. The militants again set the settlement ablaze, murdered local elders, and caused tens of thousands to flee. This time, the refugees from Rann relocated to
Goura in Cameroon's
Far North Region.
In August 2021, Rann was overrun by ISWAP insurgents who destroyed the local barracks and looted the settlement before retreating back into the bush.
References
Populated places in Borno State
{{BornoNG-geo-stub