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Kano — At least 38 people were killed following a raid by suspected Islamist Boko Haram gunmen on a village in northeast Nigeria and a military aerial bombardment of fleeing residents mistaken for insurgents, villagers said Monday.The attack on the Christian farming village of Dille in Askira Uba district, 200km from regional capital Maiduguri late on Sunday through Monday, burnt the entire village including three churches, they said.
Dozens of gunmen in all terrain vehicles and on motorcycles stormed the village from the nearby Sambisa forest where the insurgents maintain camps, firing indiscriminately and throwing grenades and explosives into homes.
The attack, which sent residents fleeing into the bush followed an earlier raid on Buttuku village in neighbouring Adamawa state, said resident Michael Umaru Jar.
“We lost 38 people in Boko Haram attacks and bombardments by a military jet on innocent residents fleeing the village,” Jar said.
“The Boko Haram gunmen came around 23:00 yesterday [Sunday] and opened fire on the village with guns, rocket-propelled grenades and explosives,” said Jar who fled to Lassa village, 7km away.
Locals went into the bush where they passed the night but when they tried to return to their homes Monday morning, the attackers opened fire on them from hills overlooking the village where they had taken cover, said another resident, John Buba.
Panicked residents who tried to take a bus out of the village were mistaken for fleeing insurgents by military fighter jets that are deployed to repel the attackers.
“Unfortunately, the fighter jets threw three explosives on the people waiting for a bus inside the garage [bus station],” said Buba in an account supported by Jar.
“Several people were injured and have been brought to Lassa for medical attention,” Jar said.
The military and police in Maiduguri could not be reached for official comment on the attack.
But a military source confirmed the Boko Haram raid and deployment of two fighter jets which repelled the attacks and killed “many”.
The source declined to give further details.
Boko Haram’s five-year uprising to create an Islamic state in northern Nigeria has killed thousands.
The insurgents have killed more than 2,000 people this year alone.
Meanwhile, Pakistani education activist Malala Yousafzai on Monday urged Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan to meet with parents of the schoolgirls kidnapped three months ago by Boko Haram.
Malala, who survived a Taliban assassination attempt in 2012 and has become a champion for access to schooling, was in Abuja on her 17th birthday to mark three months since Boko Haram abducted 276 girls from a secondary school in Chibok, in the northeast.
At least 219 of the girls taken on April 14 are still missing.
Malala on Sunday met with several girls who escaped Boko Haram captivity and parents of some of the hostages before her talks with Jonathan.
“I asked the president, is it possible for him to go and see the parents, to see these girls, to encourage them and to tell them that yes, their daughters will return home?” Malala told journalists after the meeting, adding that Jonathan had agreed to meet some parents. The parents she met with appeared “hopeless,” she said, and “need the president’s support”.
Jonathan has faced heavy criticism for his handling of the hostage crisis, which many say has lacked both compassion and urgency, and is not known to have met with any of the girls’ families before now.
The rescue operation was slow to launch and the military was forced to retract a statement issued days after the kidnapping claiming that all the girls had been freed.
The president had planned to go to Chibok in May to commiserate with the targeted community, but cancelled the visit at the last minute without any explanation.
Malala urged Nigeria to do everything possible to secure the release of the hostages, who were snatched from their school under the cover of darkness and carted away in trucks.
“My birthday wish this year is . . . to see them returning to their homes,” she said. — AFP
Bongani Ndlovu