Boko Haram Gunmen Kill 42, Set Houses Ablaze and Loot Shops in Borno Villages
LAGOS JUNE 24TH (URHOBOTODAY)-Suspected Boko Haram gunmen shot dead at least 42 people in two separate attacks in northeast Nigeria, with no let-up in sight to the Islamist group’s targeting of civilians.
The attacks in the remote villages of Debiro Hawul and Debiro Biu in Borno state on Monday and Tuesday came before at least 10 people were killed in a suicide attack in neighbouring Yobe.
In all, nearly 250 people have been killed in Nigeria since Muhammadu Buhari became president on May 29 vowing to crush the militant uprising that has claimed at least 15,000 lives, mostly in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state..
The latest attacks saw some 30 militant fighters storm Debiro Biu on Monday and Debiro Hawul the following day. Details of the attack did not emerge for several hours due to poor telecommunications networks in the remote villages in northeast Nigeria, a region in which Boko Haram has killed thousands in a six-year bid to set up an Islamic state.
“We received reports of attacks by suspected Boko Haram gunmen on the two villages, in which 42 deaths were recorded,” one police officer told AFP from the town of Biu.
Boko Haram militants who torched houses and shot people as they fled in two villages in northeast Nigeria’s Borno state, witnesses told Reuters on Wednesday.
The attackers, who arrived on motorcycles and vehicles mounted with guns, shot residents and looted shops in the villages of Debiro Biu and Debiro Hawul late on Monday night and into Tuesday morning, the witnesses said.
Local police confirmed the attacks took place but declined to comment further.
“They were shooting sporadically and then they started looting shops and setting places ablaze,” said witness Hussaini Adamu, who fled with other villagers to hide in bushes after fleeing Debiro Biu.
Muhammadu Buhari, the new president of Africa’s most populous nation and biggest economy, made Maiduguri the command center for the military campaign against Boko Haram after being inaugurated last month.
Buhari has held talks with counterparts in neighboring countries to set up a joint force to tackle the insurgents.
Boko Haram controlled territory the size of Belgium in the northeast at the start of the year but has been pushed out of most of it by the Nigerian army, backed by troops from Chad, Niger and Cameroon.
