215 People Killed In Three States In Nigeria Saturday Night By Gun Men

 

The outlawed Boko Haram sect attacked another Borno village, Izge in Gwoza local government area on Saturday evening and  killed over 90 persons in what also   forced  hundreds of  others to flee.

It would be recalled that the sect who had been on rampage in the last couple of weeks roving round villages in the state, killing persons without caution only last Tuesday killed over 60 people in Konduga.

Sources revealed to journalists Sunday in Maiduguri, that the hoodlums laid siege on the hilly village, killing at will and inflicting severe injuries on the residents.

The source said   many of the villagers were   currently missing  while  those lucky enough to be alive have started moving in drove out of the village.

Meanwhile, no fewer than 65 persons were   killed in eight villages of Madagali Local Government Area in Adamawa state by suspected members of Boko Haram Saturday night, forcing over 10,000   persons to  flee from the affected villages.

An eyewitness, Adamu Bulama,  of Izghe, one of the villages attacked confirmed that he saw 40 corpses with gun wounds apart from those who were slaughtered in their houses that he couldn’t account for.

Another  source from Yazza village also   said he saw about 25 persons  who were  slaughtered by members of the sect group,  adding that he and others narrowly escaped the gun men who were in their numbers killing innocent persons on   Saturday night.
 Another Version
 As well gunmen suspected of being Boko Haram Islamists have reportedly killed dozens of people, mostly Christians, in a village Northeast Nigeria, an official and local residents said Sunday.
"They killed many, many people in the attack late Saturday. From the latest information I have gathered, more than 60 people have been killed," the local government chairman, Maina Ularamu, told AFP.
Ularamu, who spoke to AFP from the Nigerian capital Abuja, said the toll which he had gathered from residents of Izghe village in the troubled Borno state still had to be verified.
The residents of the village -- populated by mostly Christians -- had fled the scene of the carnage.
"We suspect that the gunmen were members of Boko Haram. They have taken over the village," Ularamu said.
"They looted businesses and food stores and loaded all their spoils into vehicles owned by residents and fled into the bush."
The attack made hundreds of villagers homeless, he said, adding that he was about to return to the state capital Maiduguri to face the security and humanitarian challenges created by the raid.
A survivor of the attack, Barnabas Idi, a farmer, who said he scaled the fence of his house and crawled for about 40 minutes to safety, narrated to AFP his account of the raid.
"The attackers came around 9:30 pm (2030 GMT) in six trucks and some motorcycles. They were dressed in military uniform. They asked men to assemble at a place, hacking and slaughtering them," he said.
Some of them went door-to-door looking for those in hinding in their houses.
He said that he scaled over the fence of his house and "crawled on my belly for 40 minutes until I was able to run to safety".
Izghe is about 140 kilometres (87 miles) from Maiduguri and Idi said that security agents were not present during the attack.
Another resident who also survived the attack gave a similiar account of the raid.
A military spokesman in the area, Lieutenant Colonel Mohammed Dole, told AFP he had not been briefed on the attack.
Boko Haram militants early last week killed 43 people in the villages of Konduga and Wajirko, also in Borno state, in attacks that triggered the exodus of hundreds of villagers to Maiduguri.
Borno and the neighbouring states of Adamawa and Yobe have been under emergency rule since May last year in a bid to stop the Islamist rebellion, which has claimed thousands of lives since 2009.
Attacks have continued in remote areas as well as in cities despite a military operation launched in the northeast when emergency rule was declared.
President Goodluck Jonathan, who has voiced frustration with the progress of the operation, replaced his top military brass on January 16.