Suspected Boko Haram Attacks In Nigeria's Borno State Kill Nearly 250 In Under A Month

Dozens were slain this week when some 30 Islamist militants in trucks and on motorcycles raided two villages in northeast Nigeria’s ravaged Borno state. The suspected Boko Haram gunmen looted homes, set buildings ablaze and shot dead at least 42 people in the attacks on Debiro Hawul and Debiro Biu villages Monday and Tuesday, police and residents told Agence France-Presse. Nearly 250 people have been killed in just under a month with the latest attacks.

"We received reports of attacks by suspected Boko Haram gunmen on the two villages in which 42 deaths were recorded," a police officer from Biu, about 112 miles south of the state capital Maiduguri, told AFP Wednesday.

Residents in Debiro Hawal tried to flee the deadly raid on Tuesday, but the alleged Boko Haram Islamist terrorists hunted down their victims and pillaged shops. The attack followed a similar raid in Debiro Biu on Monday in which at least 20 people were killed. Borno state has been the center of Boko Haram’s insurgency for the past six years.

"They came around 12:30 a.m. (11:30 GMT) and opened fire on the village, which sent people scampering into the bush to escape the attack," village resident Umaru Markus told AFP Wednesday. "The gunmen slaughtered 22 people who were not fast enough in fleeing, and went about looting homes, grains silos and drugstores."

Markus told AFP residents in his village never expected to be the next target. The fresh raids came after a female suicide bomber detonated at a crowded market in northeast Nigeria’s Yobe state on Tuesday. Yobe state has repeatedly come under attack by the Islamist terrorist group Boko Haram. The bomber was said to be a young girl of about 12 years old. The blast in the remote Wagir village in the Gujba district killed 10 people and injured 30 others.

“I can only remember the loud sound, and people trying to lift me up. I saw blood gushing out of me. This is all I can remember,” victim Alhaji Idi Ahmed told Nigerian newspaper Daily Trust on Tuesday.

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari has sworn to crush Boko Haram since his inauguration on May 29. But his administration revealed Monday that the West African country is penniless and has inherited massive debt from the previous government.