Boko Haram militants have killed scores of people in raids on dozens of villages in northeast Nigeria’s Adamawa state, forcing thousands to flee into mountains and across the border into Cameroon, a lawmaker said.
For two weeks, Boko Haram gunmen have sacked dozens of villages in Michika district, close to the border with Cameroon, slaughtering male residents and abducting others.
“They move house to house, killing people, including the old, abducting women and children and burning homes,” ?Adamu Kamale, a lawmaker representing Michika district in the Adamawa state House of Assembly, said Tuesday.
Villages are littered with bodies, and there is one to bury them because residents have fled to escape the onslaught, Kamale said.
“They slaughter people like animals,” he said.
?”Now, 70% of the people in the district have been dislodged from the homes. Some of them have run into the mountains, while others have crossed into Cameroon or fled to Yola,” the capital of Adamawa state, Kamale said.
?A relief official said the raids prompted an exodus of villagers to Yola, where they are staying in camps for people displaced by Boko Haram.
Humanitarian workers have been unable to reach residents who fled into the mountains, said Mohammed Kanar, head of the National Emergency Management Agency for northeast Nigeria.
“We are aware there are people trapped in the mountains but they are inaccessible. The security situation is a challenge in reaching them and offering them humanitarian assistance,” Kanar said.
?The insurgents started the killing spree in Michika township and moved into villages including Murva, Bororo, Ghumci, Garta-Kasa, Kamale, Boka, Futu and Kwabaride?.?
Michika has been under Boko Haram’s control since the group seized it in September, along with several other districts in Adamawa and neighboring Borno state. It has declared them part of its caliphate.
Kamale said the military has not responded to complaints that he and other community leaders lodged, calling for its intervention.
“Sometimes we alert the military when they are advancing on villages before they attack, but no action is taken to stop them,” he said.
“These insurgents have been killing with impunity. When they attack a village, they will sleep there for the night after the slaughter and move on the next morning,” the lawmaker said.
There has been no reaction from the military to Kamale’s allegation.