Death toll from Borno attack hits 100

BLAST SCENE

By Bayo Akinloye

The number of deaths resulting from the Friday early morning attack by Boko Haram insurgents in a Borno village has risen to 100 just as the terrorists hoisted a black and white flag in the remote village.

On Saturday, survivors claimed the insurgents had attacked the town of Damboa before dawn on Friday, firing rocket-propelled grenades, throwing locally produced bombs into homes and gunning down people as they tried to escape the ensuing fires.

As reported by the Associated Press, many houses were burnt down by the marauding terrorists. According to a human rights advocate, who pleaded not to be named, the insurgents struck again as people were trying to bury their dead, and that the toll was probably much higher than 100.

While there were no soldiers to repel the attack, Gava said the only defence the villagers had came from vigilantes who were armed with clubs and homemade rifles.

According to a spokesman for the Nigerian Vigilante Group, Abbas Gava, hundreds of people in another village, Askira Uba, are fleeing after they got letters from the Islamist terrorists threatening to attack and take over their villages.

He said, “Nine major villages are on the run.”

The town had been under siege for two weeks, since Boko Haram dislodged soldiers from a new tank battalion camp on its outskirts.

The defence ministry claimed to have repelled the attack and killed at least 50 insurgents for the loss of six soldiers, including the commanding officer, but residents in the area said many soldiers had been killed and that the military had been driven from the base.

According to residents, the extremists had in the past week twice ambushed military convoys trying to reach the base. The militants cut off access to the town on Monday, when they blew up a bridge to the south of it. Damboa is on the main road south from Maiduguri, the Borno state capital, and at a strategic crossroads for farmers bringing their produce to market.

Hundreds of thousands of farmers have been driven from their land by the five-year-old insurgency, and the government officials in the worst-hit areas have been warning of imminent food shortages.

Boko Haram has attracted international condemnation for the abduction of more than 200 schoolgirls who have been held hostage for more than 90 days.

The insurgents have increased the number and ferocity of their attacks this year, particularly in their north-eastern stronghold.

The Human Rights Watch published a report last week which claimed the extremist Islamist group had killed more than 2,000 civilians in an estimated 95 attacks during the first half of 2014.

This figure, the HRW said, was close to an estimated 3,600 people killed in the first four years of the insurgency.