About 150 Nigerian Muslims praying in mosques before breaking their Ramadan fast were murdered last night.Eye witnesses told AFP, that the militants mowed down men and children in three remote villages in the north-eastern Borno state yesterday – and shot women preparing food at home.
Gunmen killed at least 97 people in Kukawa, the worst-affected village, according to a local called ‘Kolo’ who said he had counted the bodies. A fisherman who saw the attack corroborated the figure.Kolo said:
‘They wiped out the immediate family of my uncle… They killed his children, about five of them, and set his entire house ablaze.’
Another witness in Kukawa, Babami Alhaji Kolo, who fled to the state capital Maiduguri, said more than 50 militants had stormed the village.
‘The terrorists first descended on Muslim worshippers in various mosques who were observing the Maghrib prayer shortly after breaking their fast,’ he said. They… opened fire on the worshippers who were mostly men and young children. They spared nobody.
In fact, while some of the terrorists waited and set most of the corpses on fire, others proceeded to houses and shot indiscriminately at women who were preparing food.’
In two other villages near the town of Monguno, gunmen killed 48 people and injured 11 others, local politician Mohammed Tahir and witnesses said.
‘They selected particular male residents from among the crowd of worshippers… and opened fire on them before setting the two villages on fire and razing them to the ground,’ Mr Tahir said.
Another resident who managed to escape said the militants arrived in vans and on motorbikes.
‘They killed 48 people and injured several others but many of us managed to escape amid volleys of bullets,’