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 indiscriminately 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.”
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