Islamist
insurgents last week killed a total of 40 people and wounded a dozen
others in two separate incidents in restive northeast Nigeria, a local
official said Monday.
Some 70 gunmen stormed the town of Bama in
Borno State on a convoy of motorcycles and pick-up trucks late Thursday,
said Baba Shehu from the area’s local government.
“They
shot … 27 persons and injured 12. About 300 houses were burnt,” Shehu
told reporters in Borno’s capital Maiduguri, where Boko Haram was
founded more than a decade ago.
“Immediately people saw the
gunmen, they (locals) started fleeing the town but the insurgents opened
fire on them,” said Shehu, adding that the wounded were receiving
treatment at a local hospital.
In a separate incident on Saturday,
Shehu said 13 people travelling on a bus in the same area were
“ambushed by the Islamist militants and murdered in cold blood.”
“The
attackers took the travellers unawares … Some of the passengers escaped
unhurt from the vehicle but were pursued by the insurgents and killed,”
he added.
No other details were provided about the attack.
Bama
and other remote parts of northeast Nigeria have seen a series of
brutal attacks in recent weeks which have left hundreds dead, despite
official assurances that the insurgents have been weakened by an ongoing
military offensive.
The
mobile phone network in the area has been switched off since May, when
President Goodluck Jonathan declared a state of emergency across the
northeast and launched the military operation aimed at crushing at the
Islamists’ four-year uprising.
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