Borno villagers, soldier killed in fresh Boko Haram attacks

NO fewer than 10 people, including a soldier were killed in two separate attacks by Boko Haram insurgents at Bam and Garijiram villages of Borno State, before fleeing with abducted girls and snatched food items into the Sambisa forest on Sunday

Bam is near the country home of the Chief of Army Staff, Lt-Gen Tukur Buratai, and 200 kilometres south of Maiduguri, the state capital.

Ali Bam, a resident of Bam who fled to Miringa, in a telephone interview on Monday disclosed that the gunmen attacked the village in the early hours of Sunday and set it ablaze, killing four people, before fleeing with unspecified abducted girls into the Sambisa forest.
“The insurgents after their attacks and abduction separated the teenage girls from married women and set ablaze the village and fled with the girls unchallenged, as the attack lasted for some hours before they left,” said Bam

He continued: “I hereby call on General Buratai to do something urgently, as we have been telling the soldiers that Boko Haram insurgents are in some neighbouring villages.”

In a related development, some Boko Haram terrorists also attacked and torched Gajiganna village of Magumeri Local Government area of Borno State killing three villagers and a soldier before carting away a lot of foodstuff into an awaiting pickup van.

Aliyu Jibrin of the Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF) told The Guardian yesterday that the insurgents who came at about 8.30pm Friday shooting sporadically into the air to scare the people, before they killed a woman and a soldier and carted away a lot of foodstuff and set the shops ablaze.

I believe it was a revenge mission, because recently we arrested over 17 Boko Haram insurgents and handed them over to the military.’’ Another resident, who does not want to be mentioned also said: “We have been advising the civilian JTF and security agencies that most of those coming in trucks to buy foodstuffs are members of the Boko Haram sect but they refused to do something about it.

I am calling on the Federal Government and the military authorities to do something about the pockets of insurgents in the bushes and villagers before they regroup and start attacking big towns and villages,’’ he stated.
He said the attack on Gajigannna could have been avoided or repelled if soldier acted on their information but when they came the soldiers took to their heels without faci9ng the insurgents.