Nigeria: Boko Haram Raids Towns in Yobe

Local Editor

Nigerian terror group Boko Haram [now ISWAP] had raided two towns in the north of Nigeria hours after it carried out a bomb attack on a mosque in Borno State's capital Maiduguri, killing at least 26 people and injuring several others.

The group torched public buildings, including a police station, a law court and government-built houses in Galda and Fika, in Yobe State, on Sunday [31 May].

Further, the terrorists forced policemen to flee and residents to run indoors during the raid in which they also burned the towns' telecom masts.

"Fika and Galda came under attack from Boko Haram last night. They burnt several public buildings in Fika and looted shops in Galda," a policeman, who spoke under conditions of anonymity, said. He added that the number of casualties was not available.

"Soldiers [were] deployed from here but they were overpowered ‎by the gunmen. Communication with the area has been disrupted as a result of the burning of telecom masts in the attack‎s."

Yobe, Borno and Adamawa are the states that mostly bear the brunt of the deadly insurgence, which had killed and displaced thousands in northeastern Nigeria since 2009.

The latest raids occurred shortly after President Muhammadu Buhari was sworn in after he won the presidential election in March, ousting incumbent leader Goodluck Jonathan, often accused of not stepping up the efforts to halt terrorism in the country.

Accordingly, Buhari, a former military general and member of the All Progressive Congress [APC] party, vowed to end Boko Haram's insurgence and said the country would do everything it could to find some 220 girls abducted by the insurgents from Borno's Chibok village in April 2014.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team