Suspected Islamist fighters have killed at least 90 people in an early-morning attack on a village in remote north-east Nigeria, according to witnesses.
Boko Haram gunmen surrounded the village of Izge, near the border with Cameroon, spraying it with bullets, setting off explosions and burning down dozens of houses.
"As I am talking to you now, all the dead bodies of the victims are still lying in the streets," resident Abubakar Usman told Reuters. "We fled without burying them, fearing the terrorists were still lurking in the bushes."
Lawal Tanko, the Borno state police commissioner, confirmed the attack but said he had no details of casualties. Another witness, Lawan Madu, said hundreds of residents had fled.
President Goodluck Jonathan ordered extra troops into north-eastern Nigeria in May to try to crush the insurgents, who want to carve a breakaway Islamic state out of largely Muslim northern Nigeria, where they have killed thousands of people.
But the Islamists simply retreated into the remote, hilly Gwoza area bordering Cameroon, from where they have continued to mount deadly attacks that increasingly target civilians.
Jonathan faces election next year, and the persistence of Boko Haram's four-and-a-half-year-old insurgency, despite a costly military operation against it, remains a major headache.
Last week, Boko Haram fighters in trucks painted in military colours killed 51 people in an attack on the Konduga local government area.
- Tags:
- Nigeria,
- Boko Haram,
- Cameroon,
- Africa
