SAN FRANCISCO, August 12, (THEWILL) – Fresh Boko Haram attacks in Ngom, Maisarmari and Mailari, in Konduga and Mafa Local Government Areas of Borno State at the weekend claimed the lives of four members of the Civilian Joint Task Force members as well as 56 other villagers.
The attacks followed similar ones last month, which claimed the lives of 45 persons in two villages in the state.
Many others also sustained varying degrees of injuries in the attacks, which appeared to be a reprisal on the communities believed to have been supplying information to the military Joint Task Force (JTF) in the battle against the terrorists.
Impeccable sources in the area told THEWILL that about 52 residents of the villages were killed over the weekend with at least 12 of them in Ngom village, a border town between Mafa and Konduga Local Governments, when the terrorists decked in army and police uniforms stormed the village on Saturday night.
The four civilian JTF members who were killed by Boko Haram were said to have met their death while on a mission to smoke out the terrorists in Konduga. Some members of the youth vigilante group, who escaped narrowly from Konduga, confessed that the insurgents really overpowered them. Many others who sustained injuries in the attacks had been taken to the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital for treatment.
Confirming the attacks, a politician from the area said 12 villagers were killed even as he disclosed that another attack in Konduga claimed 40 lives.
A staff of the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital who craved anonymity confirmed that 26 persons who were brought to the hospital on Sunday were currently at the hospital receiving treatment from gunshots wounds.
At least 31 of the victims were said to have killed in their homes and mosques by the insurgents who slit their throats in order not to attract the attention of security agents to the killings. A source in the Joint Task Force (JTF) disclosed on Monday that 12 persons were killed at Ngom, while 19 other villagers had their throats slit by the invaders in the surrounding villages on Sunday.
“I cannot tell you the details of attacks, but it was certain that gunmen in military and police uniforms attacked Ngom village, 20 kilometres, east of Maiduguri, the state capital. The incident occurred in the early hours of Saturday, before we were alerted on the village attacks and killings.
“On reaching the village; the gunmen, had fled in their vehicles and motorcycles. But the village head told us that 12 of his people were killed. Their hands were tied to their backs, before they were killed by slitting their throats,” the JTF source said.
Narrating his experience of the attack, Aisami Bukar, a resident of Mailari, said: “We saw gunmen in military and police uniforms at dawn with some vehicles and motorcycles who proceeded towards our village on the Maiduguri-Bama road, chanting God is great; in Arabic. Then the gunmen started to kill some of us here in this village, one by one, until 11 villagers were slain by slitting their throats.”
According to him, “The following day at Maisarmari village, a different set of Boko Haram gunmen also invaded and attacked the village in the early hours of Sunday, and killed eight more people, while they were praying in two mosques at dawn, before soldiers rushed to the village at about 8am.”
Spokesman of the JTF, Lt. Col. Sagir Musa, could not be reached to react officially to the attacks when filing this report.
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