Fighters have slaughtered at least 55 people in an attack on a village in northeastern Nigeria’s Borno State where people had recently returned after years of displacement.
Residents of Darul Jama, located near the border with Cameroon, said the raid occurred on Friday night and fighters believed to be from Boko Haram arrived on motorbikes, shooting indiscriminately and setting homes ablaze.
Accounts on the number of deaths varied. Babagana Ibrahim, a commander of a government-aligned militia, told the news agency AFP that 55 people were killed, including six soldiers.
The traditional head of Darul Jama, who requested anonymity, told the Reuters news agency that 70 bodies had been recovered by Saturday morning and more residents were still missing in the surrounding bush.
“They went house to house, killing men and leaving women behind. Almost every household is affected,” he told the agency, adding that more than 20 houses and 10 buses were destroyed.
Nigeria’s military said it has stepped up operations in Borno State in recent months to try to contain militias and fighters from Boko Haram and its splinter group, the ISIL (ISIS) affiliate in West Africa Province (ISWAP).
The area is believed to be under the control of a Boko Haram commander named Ali Ngulde, according to AFP, which quoted a security source as saying he led the attack.
Resident Babagana Mala, who fled with soldiers to Bama town, 46km (29 miles) away, said the military had been warned for three days about Boko Haram gathering near the village but no reinforcements were sent.
“They overwhelmed the soldiers, who fled with us to Bama,” he said.
Many of the victims were known to be families recently relocated from the Government Secondary School displacement camp in Bama, which authorities shut down this year.
“The government told us we would be safe here,” said Hajja Fati, a mother of five who lost her brother in the attack. “Now we are burying our people again.”
The attack raises questions about Nigeria’s push in recent years to close down camps for displaced people and return them to the countryside.
Boko Haram has been waging a bloody fight to establish a caliphate in northeastern Nigeria since 2009, killing about 40,000 people and forcing more than two million people to flee their homes.
ISWAP split from the group in 2016.
According to a tally by Good Governance Africa, a nonprofit, the first six months of 2025 saw a resurgence in activity from armed groups. It charted about 300 attacks – mainly from ISWAP – that killed about 500 civilians.
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