Residents have fled their homes as Boko Haram terrorists attacked four villages in the southern part of Borno State, Channels Television reports.
According to local sources who are on the run, the attack is ongoing as of 9pm on Saturday. Eyewitnesses disclosed that the insurgents rode in at least 10 Toyota Hilux vans, and they were first seen around Mandara Dirau at about 1pm.
The insurgents were said to have proceeded unchallenged through parts of villages identified as Debiro, Tashan Alade, Tirgitu, and Shaffa town shooting sporadically, looting food items, and setting houses ablaze.
Villages attacked are situated within Hawul and Shaffa Local Government Areas of the state. Terrified villagers were said to have hidden in nearby mountains, except for the old and the sick that were feared to be stuck in the mayhem.
For fear of attacks, farmers in remote villages resorted to storing their harvested food in rented stores at the local government headquarters of Biu Local Government.
Despite distress calls to the military, the terrorists were not repelled, adding that the villages attacked today are not remote and the attacks were unexpected.
Recall that the insurgents have been launching attacks since Thursday where a Chibok village was ransacked during a Christmas Eve carol night. A similar attack was also launched in Garkida, an Adamawa town bordering southern Borno.
Today’s attack is the third in three days, with no word from the military. Details of today’s attacks are still sketchy as villagers are still in hiding.
Boko Haram and a splinter group known as the Islamic State of West Africa Province (ISWAP) have launched a series of attacks in Nigeria for more than a decade now.
More than 30,000 people have been killed and nearly 3 million displaced in a decade of Boko Haram violence in Nigeria, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
According to the UN Refugee Agency, violence by Boko Haram has affected 26 million people in the Lake Chad region and displaced 2.6 million others.
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