Boko Haram ‘kills 145’ in Borno villages

Suspected Boko Haram insurgents have killed at least 145 people over two separate raids on Mussaram I and Mussaram II, Monguno local government area of Borno state.

Maidugu Bida, a member of a vigilante group, told journalists that about 48 persons were killed in the attack which happened late Wednesday.

Tahir Monguno, representative of Monguno Nganzai, Marte federal constituency in the house of representatives, confirmed the incident to the BBC Hausa Service.

“We received the sad news that Boko Haram terrorists attacked some communities near Monguno,” he said.

“Since their dislodgement from the Sambisa forest, many Boko Haram terrorists had relocated to areas around Monguno where they have been picking on hapless villages and killing residents there.”

A resident of Monguno also told BBC that the insurgents waited for their victims to finish praying from the mosque before descending them.

He said only the males  among them were spared, while the females were spared.

“They were praying in the mosque when Boko Haram attackers descended on the village. They waited till they finished the prayers. They gathered them in one place, separated men from women and opened fire on them,” he said.

“Many died, some escaped. They then set fire on the village. I saw five victims with bullet wounds who managed to escape. They were brought to our town [Monguno] on wheelbarrows, before they were transferred to vehicles that took them to hospitals.”

The sect also launched an attack on Kukawa, also a town in Borno, killing an unspecified number of people.

A military source told Reuters that the death toll in the second attack could be as high as 97.

“Many people were killed,” the source said, adding that the casualty figure “may be very high”.

Boko Haram has continued to attack vulnerable communities in the north-east despite the effort of the government to put the group in check.

On Wednesday, two suicide bombers struck in Molai, a town 40 kilometres of Maiduguri, capital of the state, killing five persons.

The attack happened just as Yemi Osinbajo, Nigeria’s vice-president, was departing the state after visiting different camps of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs).

Osinbajo also visited IDPs in Adamawa on Thursday.