Boko Haram insurgents reportedly killed 69 persons at Foduma Kolomaiya village, 11 kilometres away from Gazaure town of Gubio Local Government Area of Borno State yesterday.
Gubio, 96 kilometres away from Maiduguri is in the northern part of Borno State.
Sources and residents told the Daily Trust that the attack, which was launched around noon, lasted two hours before the terrorists retreated.
Besides the people killed, the attackers reportedly killed over 300 cows and rustled nearly 1000.
It was gathered that the terrorists invaded the community 24 hours after attacking commuters along the Monguno highway.
Residents, who spoke to our correspondent, said many people also sustained injuries.
One of the sources said many people were missing after the attack.
Efforts to confirm the attack from Army Spokesman, Col. Sagir Musa were not successful. He did not return a call and did not also respond to a text message sent around 10.09 last night.
But a source from one of the leading international organisations working in the northeast, the head of one of the vigilante groups, a source from a credible NGO and a public affairs analyst all confirmed the attack in Gubio.
“It is the deadliest attack in recent times,” one of them said. “The location of the village made rescue mission a bit difficult,” he said.
“Many people were killed and others missing because the attackers waylaid the village in broad daylight, surrounded it and opened fire,” another source said. On his part, the vigilante official said 69 dead bodies were counted. “These exclude those that are missing…More about the attack will come to the fore tomorrow (today),” he said.
The latest attack happened two days after the Chief of Army Staff, General Tukur Buratai, left Borno State having stayed there for two months.
Buratai had on Monday briefed President Muhammadu Buhari at the State House in Abuja on his two month-sojourn in the theatre of war.
The army chief had said the fight against the insurgents was still ongoing.
He had said tremendous achievement had been recorded in the fight against insurgency in the northeast with the killing of 1, 429 Boko Haram insurgents and the arrest of 116 of their associates.
Buratai, who returned to the headquarters in Abuja on Sunday, said President Buhari was happy with the performance of the military when he briefed him on the operations in the northeast for the past two months.
He had said: “The troops are putting in their best and that has resulted in the tremendous successes we are recording.
“The fight is still ongoing and over 1429 Boko Haram terrorists have been neutralised and we have arrested over 166 Boko Haram terrorists informants, their spies, couriers on logistics and their coordinators in the villages, the towns and even the forest.
“So, this is a tremendous achievement, our intelligence corps along with the Department of State Services and of course our good friends the Civilian Joint Task Force CJTF, have worked very hard to see that this is achieved and I assure you that things will continue to improve as the days go by,” he said.
The AFP news agency on Sunday reported that six Nigerian soldiers were killed during an attack by Boko Haram fighters on a military base on Saturday, June 6.
It said ISWAP in trucks equipped with machine guns, attacked the Auno base, 25 km from Maiduguri, capital of Borno state.
“We lost six soldiers in the attacks launched by the terrorists on Saturday around 6:30 p.m.,” one officer told AFP on condition of anonymity.”
“We lost six soldiers in the attacks launched by the terrorists on Saturday around 6:30 p.m. The clashes lasted for two hours until the overwhelmed Nigerian military was forced to retreat, another military source said, confirming this assessment.
“The army is searching for 45 soldiers who could not be located but who it believes managed to escape, the source added.
“The attackers looted weapons and burned buildings inside the base before being repelled with air support, according to the same source.
“The area has recently been targeted by a series of attacks on the army and abductions of drivers at fake security force checkpoints,” the AFP said.
