No fewer than 30 travellers were killed by suspected members of the dreaded terrorist group, Boko Haram, in Borno on Sunday, WuzupNigeria has learned.
The deceased were said to be night travellers.
Reports said the victims arrived the military checkpoints leading into Maiduguri after the 5 pm closure of the gate and they had no choice but to sleep in Auno on Maiduguri-Damaturu Highway.
The villagers while narrating their ordeal in the hands of the terrorist group on Sunday night to Borno Governor, Prof. Babagana Umara Zulum who paid a condolence call on them on Monday morning, decried that many other persons were abducted.
They lamented that 18 vehicles, including trailers, buses and cars, were burnt by the insurgents who laid siege on their village around 9:50 pm on Sunday.
The villagers said women and children were loaded into three buses and driven away.
The villagers lamented that most of those that were attacked were those that could not get into Maiduguri on Sunday as the gate to the town was shut against them haven’t failed to arrive before the 5pm deadline.
One of the villagers, who spoke anonymously to journalists, said:
“It is so sad as the Boko Haram seems to have targeted the people knowing that many would have to sleep in Auno as the gate to Maiduguri would have been shut against them by 5pm.”
He further lamented that when the travellers arrived after 5pm the gate mounted by the military was closed and all vehicular movements had officially ceased, the insurgents came at night and slaughtered everyone in sight.
The governor, who was visibly shaken when he saw the charred bodies of the victims of the attack, who were roasted by the fire resulting from burnt vehicles, requested the military authorities to dismantle the Auno gate from its present position and move it further away from the village so that it will be more difficult for insurgents to gain access into the village.
He said that the Borno state government will assist those whose vehicles were destroyed in the attack as well as those whose goods were burnt alongside the vehicles transporting foodstuff and other wares into Maiduguri.
He, however, called on the people to remain calm and law-abiding in the face of the challenges, promising that the government will look for a way out the situation.
