Suspected members of the jihadist group Boko Haram killed ten civilians during attacks on villages in northeastern Nigeria, officials of local pro-government militias were told Monday (August 7th).
The attackers killed in their sleep late Sunday four residents of the village of Kurmari, 40 km from the regional capital Maiduguri, Babakura Kolo, head of a local pro-government militia, told AFP.
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They refrained from using firearms so as not to attract the attention of troops deployed in a nearby locality, said another militia member, Ibrahim Liman.
In another village on the outskirts of Maiduguri, also on Sunday, suspected jihadists burned three people alive and killed a fourth with knives, local sources said.
Two farmers were also killed in their fields and several others were kidnapped near the city, it was added.
More than 36,000 people have been killed in the violence since the start of the Boko Haram insurgency in 2009 in northeast Nigeria, where more than two million people still cannot return to their homes.
The violence then spread to neighboring Cameroon, Niger and Chad.
Since 2015, Nigeria and these three countries, all four bordering Lake Chad, have been fighting against the jihadists within the Joint Multinational Force (FMM), a regional coalition supported by vigilance committees made up of residents.