Boko Haram kills 45 in fresh Borno village attack

Suspected members of the deadly Boko Haram Islamic sect on Monday attacked Dille village in Borno State, killed 45 people and torched several houses and shops and forced many people to flee into nearby hills for safety.

The terrorists, it was gathered, came in a convoy of over 20 vehicles and motorcycles. According to one of the villagers, Njimtiku Papka, who spoke to journalists in Maiduguri on the phone, the terrorists on arriving the village started shooting at everyone in sight.

He said, “Some of us had to flee into the nearby hills for safety, because the insurgents do not spare any person in their attacks and killings in the last three or four months. Monday’s attacks and killings bring to five other villages that had been attacked by Boko Haram gunmen, without being arrested by the military or police since January.” He lamented that among the people killed by the insurgents were those they considered as informants to the military.

Papka added, “We were caught unawares by the gunmen’s dawn attacks, because most of us were asleep but we were woken up by the chant of God is great in Arabic and sporadic gunshots. They also burnt down our houses and shops with petrol bombs.”
A vigilante in the village, Amos Yohanna, also told
journalists on the telephone on Monday that more people were coming down from the hills, while the ones that fled into nearby bushes had converged on the market square, before they fled to Lassa about 20 kilometres away to safety.

He also said that two hours after the attack, a fighter jet flew in and hovered for half an hour, to probably track the fleeing insurgents into the forest. A police officer, who spoke anonymously to journalists from
Askira town, could not ascertain the exact number of casualties of the attack, but revealed that it took the insurgents over two hours to raze down the entire Dille village.

He said, “Over three dozens of villagers lost their lives along with several houses and shops burnt down. The insurgents came through the Uba-Lassa Road in their Hilux vehicles, while others used motorcycles in attacking the village in the early hours of Monday.”