Residents of Damasak in the northern part of Borno State have given an account of their ordeal in the latest Boko Haram attack on the town that left at least 12 persons dead and several injured.
The incident which happened on Tuesday was the sixth in two weeks in the chain of insurgent attacks on Damasak, the headquarters of Mobbar Local Government Area of the state.
“What we saw with our eyes on that day … they (the insurgents) came around 4pm until daybreak, and we heard them giving instructions on the houses to be burnt,” one of the survivors Mustapha Maina told newsmen.
He added, “The gunshots in the town were so much that we did not know where to hide. We buried up to 12 people. There are a lot of our people by the riverbank at the Niger border – it is just a five-minute drive from here.
“They (the insurgents) were speaking Hausa, Shuwa, Kanuri, and Fulani languages. They told us not to run, that they won’t touch us. Those who died were killed by stray bullets; they were not direct targets.”
Damasak used to be a producer and exporter of vegetables to target markets within Nigeria and neighbouring countries before Boko Haram took control of it in 2014 as one of their caliphates.
Although it has since been liberated by the military from the hold of the terrorist group, the insurgents appear not to have given up on the town.
A United Nations helicopter was shot in Damasak last year, barely managing to fly to safety.
Recently, the UN humanitarian hub, private residential houses, a police station, the palace of the district head, a primary healthcare centre, and a GSM Village were among properties destroyed when the insurgents invaded the town.
This forced thousands of residents to flee Damasak to seek refuge in border communities in the Niger Republic, although some of them are said to be returning home.
