According to a report by AP, Boko Haram members are turning their guns on elderly people, & killed about 50 of them this week in a new tactic to instill more fear in some Northern area.
Residents from five villages say people too elderly to flee Gwoza local government area are being rounded up and taken to two schools where the militants open fire on them. The villages are about 130 kilometers (80 miles) southeast of Maiduguri, in Borno
“What they are doing now is to assemble the aged people – both men and women … and then they just open fire on some of them,” said Muhammed Gava, a spokesman for civil defense groups in the area.More than 50 people had been killed at Government Day Secondary School in Gwoza, he said.
A villager who had fled said
more elderly people are being gathered and shot at Uvaghe Central
Primary School. The villager spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of
endangering his trapped parents.
Government officials did not immediately comment on the reports.
Nigeria’s military said
soldiers are patrolling “in search of terrorists” and “to verify
abductions” Friday around the village of Gumburi, where witnesses say
extremists kidnapped at least 185 people a week ago.
Nigeria’s military and
government have been criticized for their failure to rescue 219
schoolgirls kidnapped from a town near Gumburi in April.
In separate attacks Friday,
witnesses said Boko Haram struck at Damagum and Mamudo towns in Yobe
state, bombing government buildings, the police station and military
barracks.
The extremists suffered a
setback when they attacked soldiers guarding a power station in Borno
state, according to an engineer who spoke on condition of anonymity for
fear of reprisals. He said soldiers were warned in advance that the
extremists were advancing and engaged the militants in fierce fighting
that killed at least 70.
Extremists have killed thousands of people in a 5-year uprising that has driven some 1.6 million from their homes.
Written by Haruna Umar for AP
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