Death toll rises following suspected Boko Haram massacre in Nigerian village

LAGOS

The death toll from an attack by suspected Boko Harm militants on a Nigerian village has soared to "over 50," a health worker told Anadolu Agency on Monday.

"We received the corpses of over 50 people yesterday; many of them died of gunshots. Some were hacked to death," Sadiq Bulama, who works at a local health center in the Gwoza local government secretariat, told AA.

"Some people who were brought to the hospital later died from injuries and excessive bleeding," he added. "Those who were Muslims have been given a mass burial."

On Sunday, Izge – a Nigeria-Cameroon border community only a few kilometers south of Maiduguri, capital of Borno State – came under attack by gunmen believed to be affiliated with the Boko Haram group.

Other officials, including Senator Ali Ndume and Gwoza Local Government Area Chairman Marina Ularamu, gave higher casualty numbers.

Ndume, who represents Borno in the Nigerian senate and is currently on trial for alleged links to Boko Haram, told newsmen that he had heard reports that as many as 106 people had been killed in the attack, which had lasted for more than four hours.

Ularamu, meanwhile, told reporters that "around 93 people were killed during the bloody siege on Izge," urging the government to step up efforts to combat the Boko Haram insurgency.

According to an AA reporter, several members of the local community were reported missing in the wake of the attack.

Neither the police nor the military have issued any official statement on the incident, which followed a series of attacks on Borno villages in recent days.

No fewer than 63 people have been killed and numerous people injured in the attacks, which targeted a handful of villages, village residents told AA.

An AA reporter has learned that the Nigerian Air Force has carried out raids in some parts of the state, especially near the Sambisa Forest, thought to be a Boko Haram stronghold.

The reporter, however, cited a police source who complained that the army bombardment had been hampered by "the terrorists' use of villagers as human shields."

"[Militants] mingle with the villagers, who sometimes are threatened with death if they don't cooperate," the official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AA.

By Rafiu Ajakaye 

englishnews@aa.com.tr