Gunmen raid a village in northeastern Nigeria, kill eight locals.
Gunmen killed
eight people in a raid on a village in northeastern Nigeria, a local resident
and a vigilante said yesterday, in the latest violence blamed on Boko Haram.
The attack
in Borno state Wednesday was unleashed the same day as twin suicide bombings in
Cameroon and a series of blasts at two bus stations in Nigeria that left at
least 50 dead.
“The gunmen
we believe to be from Boko Haram came into our village around 9 pm on Wednesday
and shot dead eight people,” said Umar Goni, a resident of Pompomari village.
The
militants stormed the home of the village chief who was away at the time but
killed his son before moving on to other houses where they killed a vigilante
and people who had been displaced by previous attacks, Goni said.
The toll was
confirmed by Yuram Bura, a member of a vigilante group which assists the
military in fighting the Islamists.
Pompomari is
about 15 kilometres (nine miles) from Biu, the biggest town in southern Borno,
the state which has borne the brunt of the Boko Haram insurgency.
Buhari took
office in May vowing to crush the insurgency but since then more than 750
people have been killed, according to an AFP count.
The
bloodshed came after Boko Haram released a new video on Twitter, maintaining
they were not defeated and vowing: “We will be coming from where you never
expected, stronger than before.”
Nigeria’s
new President Muhammadu Buhari, on a visit to Washington, lashed out Wednesday
at US policy in his country, saying an arms ban was hampering the fight
against the Islamist militants.
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