YOLA/DIFFA: Boko Haram militants have shot dead 24, mainly women, at a funeral in Nigeria’s northeast, rampaging through a village, setting houses on fire and shooting at random, witnesses and local government officials said on Friday.
The attack took place at about 5 p.m. on Thursday in the village of Kuda in Adamawa State. Resident Moses Kwagh told Reuters that people waited until three hours after the attack and had then counted 18 women’s bodies. Some women were still missing, he said.
A police source confirmed the attack but said it was not yet clear how many people had been killed. The military did not respond to a request for comment.
Meanwhile, tens of thousands of Nigeriens who fled a deadly Boko Haram attack are in “great distress,” with many lacking food and health care, Niger’s interior minister said during a visit to the displaced Thursday.
Boko Haram attacked a military post in Bosso in Niger’s Diffa region on June 3, killing 26 soldiers including two from neighboring Nigeria.
The UN refugee agency said some 50,000 people have fled since the attack in Bosso, a town in Niger near the border with Nigeria and Chad.
“The people are living in a state of great distress,” said Mohamed Bazoum, who led a delegation of several ministers, representatives of UN agencies and NGOs. But “the situation has improved significantly since one week ago when we reached the peak of the crisis,” he told AFP.
Shortly after the delegation visited the Nguagam camp, which is some 40 km north of Diffa, witnesses reported hearing numerous gunshots in the area.
24 shot dead at Nigeria funeral
24 shot dead at Nigeria funeral
