Boko Haram militants have killed at least 43 people in a five-hour assault on the town of Gubio in Borno State, witnesses told Reuters
on Tuesday.
Thousands of people have been killed and
several millions displaced in a six-year Boko Haram insurgency that
once saw the group control an area the size of Belgium. But the Islamist
insurgents have since lost most of their gains to military
counter-offensives.
The latest attack, which a military
source said involved a convoy of around 50 Boko Haram members storming
Gubio, lasted for around five hours on Saturday afternoon and ended
about 9.30 p.m., local resident Mallam Yusuf Mohammed said.
Details
of such attacks often take a number of days to surface outside of the
affected areas due to poor telecommunications in the area.
Mohammed estimated that more than 400 houses had been burnt by the insurgents.
“They came, shooting, threatening to
kill everybody. They set fire on many houses, burnt down our peoples’
vehicles and motorcycles. We lost 43 people including two children,”
Abubakar Mondama, leader of a local vigilante group, told journalists.
Boko Haram has been driven out of nearly
all the territory it captured by a series of offensives waged by
Nigeria’s armed forces backed by those from the neighbouring states of
Chad, Niger and Cameroon in the past few months. Remaining militants
have retreated into the Sambisa Forest.
Source:Punch Newspaper.
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