DAKAR, Senegal

At least 18 civilians were killed in an attack attributed to the Boko Haram group, local media reported on Sunday.

The attack took place in the Nguetchewe village on Saturday night which also seriously injured 11 people in the region, according to local L'Oeil du Sahel newspaper.

Boko Haram launched a bloody insurgency in 2009 in northeastern Nigeria but later spread its atrocities to neighboring Niger, Chad and Cameroon, prompting a military response.

More than 30,000 people have been killed and nearly 3 million displaced in a decade of Boko Haram's terrorist activities in Nigeria, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Violence committed by Boko Haram has affected some 26 million people in the Lake Chad region and displaced 2.6 million others, according to the UN Refugee Agency.