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Maiduguri – Around 90 people were feared killed when Boko Haram fighters armed with guns and explosives attacked a village in northeastern Nigeria, the army and local residents said on Sunday.
Suicide bombers also carried out deadly attacks on Sunday in the Lake Chad region, an area frequently targeted by Boko Haram, a local security official said.
Nigeria’s army said Boko Haram fighters struck Dalori, about 12KM from the northern city of Maiduguri, late on Saturday, burning down the village and sending residents fleeing into the bush.
Dalori is located near camps set up for people displaced by the seven-year Boko Haram insurgency in the northeast of Africa’s most populous country.
“During the incident lives were lost while some people sustained injuries,” army spokesperson Colonel Mustapha Anka said in a statement.
Residents and an aid worker said up to 90 people were killed in the assault which took place after evening prayers in the mostly Muslim region.
Anka said the assailants also tried to penetrate the Dalori camp, but they were repelled by the troops.
Boko Haram has kept up a wave of attacks despite President Muhammadu Buhari declaring late last year that Nigeria had “technically” won the war against the group.
In the Lake Chad region, which borders Nigeria as well as Chad, Cameroon and Niger, suicide bombers struck two Chadian villages killing three people, a local security official said.
In the first attack in Guie, a bomber on a motorcycle blew himself up, killing one person and injuring 32, while the second attack in the village of Miterine left two dead and 24 wounded, the official said.
Nigeria, Chad, Niger, Cameroon have formed a coalition along with Benin to fight Boko Haram and have marshalled a force of 8,700 soldiers, police and civilians.
In retaliation, Boko Haram has launched cross-border attacks from northern Nigeria on the neighbouring countries.
In Nigeria, local residents said they fled into the bush when the Boko Haram fighters descended on Dalori.
“We were seated outside our home shortly after the Isha prayer when we heard gunshots and within a few minutes the invaders had arrived,” Malam Masa Dalori, a community leader, told AFP.
“They came in Golf saloon cars and began to shoot sporadically. Many people ran to the bush including myself,” he said.
“When we came back in the morning the entire community has been razed. At least 50 people were also killed, many others injured,” he said.
Mallam Hassan, another villager, gave a similar account. “I lost an uncle in the attack. But I thank God I escaped with my children,” he said.
An aid worker who did not want to be named, said the bodies of the victims had been evacuated to the hospital.
“I think they should be more that 50, while several others were injured,” he said.
Boko Haram fighters have made several attempts to retake Maiduguri – the birthplace of the jihadist movement – since they were pushed out three years ago.
The group which seeks a hardline Islamic state in northern Nigeria has killed about 17,000 people and forced more than 2.6 million others to flee their homes since 2009.
Meanwhile, a survivor hidden in a tree says he watched Boko Haram extremists firebomb huts and heard the screams of children among people burned to death in the latest attack by Nigeria’s homegrown Islamic extremists.
Scores of charred corpses and bodies with bullet wounds littered the streets from Saturday night’s attack on Dalori village just 5KM from Maiduguri, the birthplace of Boko Haram and the biggest city in the northeast, according to survivors and soldiers.
The shooting and burning continued for four hours, survivor Alamin Bakura said, weeping in a telephone call to The Associated Press. He said several of his family members were killed or wounded.
The violence continued as three female suicide bombers blew up among people who managed to flee to neighbouring Gamori village, killing many people, according to a soldier at the scene who insisted on anonymity because he is not authorised to speak to journalists.
It was not known how many people were killed because bodies still were being collected, including from the surrounding bushes where the insurgents hunted down fleeing villagers, according to Abba Shehu, a security guard helping collect corpses.
Boko Haram has taken to attacking soft targets, increasingly with suicide bombers, since the military last year drove them out of towns and villages in northeastern Nigeria.
The six-year Islamic uprising has killed about 20,000 people and driven 2.5 million from their homes- AFP