At least 81 people have been killed and others are missing after a new jihadist attack in northeastern Nigeria, local authorities said.
According to the Yobe State Police, about 150 suspected Boko Haram members, armed with firearms and grenades, attacked Mafa village on motorcycles around 4:00 p.m. on Sunday.
“We believe this is retaliation for the killing of two Boko Haram terrorists by village vigilante groups,” police spokesman Abdulkarim Dungus told AFP.
The jihadists have repeatedly accused the inhabitants of Mafa of helping the army in its operations against Boko Haram.
“At least 81 people were killed,” said Bulama Jalaluddeen, spokesman for the chairman of the local government of Tarmuwa, where Mafa is located.
The attackers “set fire to the houses, which were mostly thatched roof dwellings, and those hiding inside were burnt alive,” said a Tarmuwa local government administrative officer who wished to remain anonymous, after speaking to a Mafa resident who managed to escape the attack.
According to Mr Jalaluddeen, 34 bodies were buried in Babbangida, the seat of the local government of the territory, and thirty others are still in Mafa.
“Fifteen bodies had already been buried by their relatives when the soldiers arrived in Mafa for the evacuation of the bodies. And an unknown number of victims from neighboring villages who were caught in the attack were taken and buried by their relatives before the arrival of the soldiers,” he added.
The police have not yet given any figures.
But it believes Boko Haram killed “many people and burned many shops and homes” during the attack, according to its spokesman in Yobe state.
Attacking rural communities
Villages in Yobe state, mostly made up of farmers and herders, are often looted or extorted by jihadists from Boko Haram and its rival faction, the Islamic State in West Africa.
In recent years, jihadists have stepped up their attacks on farmers, loggers, shepherds and fishermen in the north of the country, whom they accuse of providing information to the army and local militias fighting them.
In late October 2023, police aided by villagers killed several jihadists near the village of Kayayya, after residents received several threats.
In retaliation, the jihadists then killed 37 people in two days in two villages in Yobe State, including 20 who were returning from the funerals of those killed the day before.
The jihadist insurgency that has lasted for more than fourteen years in the north of the country has already left more than 40,000 dead and more than 2 million displaced.
Jihadist fighters from Boko Haram and ISWAP have lost ground in northeastern Nigeria over the years, but continue to attack rural communities.
Besides the jihadist insurgency, Africa’s most populous country, with more than 220 million people, also faces powerful criminal gangs, inter-communal fighting and separatist tensions.