Tag: Gunmen kill

No fewer than 51 people were yesterday killed in attacks on Borno State villages by gunmen suspected to be Boko Haram insurgents.

The terrorists killed 42 people at Gurmushi village in Marte Local Government area. About 12 others sustained gunshot injuries.

Most of the houses in the village were burnt down by the attackers, forcing the villagers to flee to Cameroun Republic.

A resident, Mallam Abacha Umar, said the gunmen invaded the village in the early hours of yesterday.

The BBC Hausa Service monitored in Maiduguri yesterday quoted a woman as saying: “I counted over 40 bodies littered on the ground, while the village was razed down completely. Most of us ran into the bush for our safety.” She also said 12 people were injured.

Another resident said she fled the village to neighboring Cameroun for fear of another attack from the Boko Haram terrorists because “they have intensified their attacks in the area in recent times”.

Also yesterday, the terrorists attacked Amuda and Arbokko border villages, killing nine residents.

They were alleged to have invaded the village in Toyota Hilux vehicles, motorcycles and an Armoured Personnel Carrier, APC.

Eyewitnesses say the gunmen came through the 16-kilometre Kughum-Pulka border road at 2am, and stormed the two neigbouring villages, firing indiscriminately at fleeing residents.

“I cannot imagine how I escaped the attacks It was God that saved my life; otherwise I would have been shot dead in my burnt house. Two of my neighbours were shot while fleeing their houses. Others fell to the ground with sustained injuries,” Pirda Takweshe, a resident of Amuda, who escaped to Pulka said yesterday.

Gunmen allegedly shot to death about 10 people during a raid on two neighbouring villages in Zamfara State, the police said yesterday.

The motive for the attack late on Saturday on the villages of Makera and Usu was not known, the police said. It was also unclear whether members of the Boko Haram or criminal gangs were behind it.

“There was an attack in these villages in Zamfara and people were killed. I think the number is around 10,” Zamfara police spokesman Hassan Usman Talba said by telephone from the scene, according to Reuters.

He said the prime suspects were gangs of Fulani herdsman but that the police were still investigating.

The Fulani’s semi-nomadic, cattle-herding way of life has led to decades of conflict with farming communities across the country that often erupts into violence.

The focus of Boko Haram’s insurgency has been Borno and Yobe States, but a military crackdown might have pushed it into other states, including Zamfara.

Analysts say the insurgency has also brought a breakdown of law and order across the North, creating opportunities for armed gangs and ethnic militias with scores to settle.

Boko Haram (Western education is a sin) killed about 2,000 people last year in a campaign to impose Islamic law on Nigeria.

Zamfara State Information Commissioner Ibrahim Birnin Magaji, said the gunmen attacked the people as they left the mosque after morning prayers.

He however said seven people were killed with seven others injured.

In June, gunmen killed 27 people in the state in attacks on villages preparing for a local market day. Another 20 were killed in an October attack.