MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (Reuters) – Suspected Islamist fighters killed 25 people on Thursday in a village in Nigeria’s northeastern Borno state, two residents and a military source said on Friday.
An insurgency by Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa Province in Nigeria’s northeast and southern Chad has killed thousands of people and displaced millions more in over a decade, humanitarian groups say.
The residents said gunmen arrived on motorbikes in Boboshe Mukdala village of Dikwa local government area of Borno, where they shot at people who were searching for scrap metal in a nearby forest.
“We recovered 25 bodies of the victims and we took those who sustained bullet wounds to (the) general hospital in Dikwa town,” said a military source who declined to be named because he is not authorised to speak to the media.
Abba Kawu Masta a member of the traditional council in Dikwa told Reuters that children were among those killed.
An army spokesman did not respond to calls and messages to his phone.
(Reporting by Maiduguri newsroom; Writing by MacDonald Dzirutwe; Editing by Alison Williams)
