Suspected Boko Haram extremists in an attack on villagers leaving a funeral in northeastern Nigeria killed more than 60 people, a local official said Sunday. It was this year’s deadliest extremist attack on civilians in the region.
Muhammad Bulama, Nganzai local government council chairman, informed journalists that at midday Saturday’s assault 11 other persons were injured.
He called it a reprisal after two weeks earlier a Boko Haram ambush was fought in the region by villagers and civilian self-defense forces, killing 11 extremists.
Last week, Nigerians marked the grim 10-year anniversary of the Boko Haram uprising that killed tens of thousands of people, displaced millions and generated one of the major humanitarian crises in the world.
Extremists are renowned for mass abductions of schoolgirls and suicide jackets for assaults on markets, mosques and other high-traffic places for young women and men.
The extremists, who are trying to impose a strict Islamic state in the region, have challenged the claims of the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari over the years that the insurgency has been crushed. Violence has spread into neighboring Chad, Niger and Cameroon.
The Nigerian army did not comment immediately on the attack on Saturday.
Bunu Bukar, a self-defense group’s secretary to the Borno Hunters Association, said the extremists were roaring up on motorbikes on Saturday and opening fire on villagers returning from offering funeral prayers to a relative. He said that almost two dozen bodies had been retrieved by his colleagues.
Bana Musa, who is also serving on the local council, told reporters that some people were able to escape the gunfire.