No fewer than 10 people were killed Saturday in raids by suspected Boko Haram gunmen on two villages near Chibok, where Islamists abducted more than 200 girls in April, residents and local leaders said.
Military fighter jets dropped bombs on the insurgents, halting the attacks after nine hours, said Enoch Mark, a Christian priest in Chibok, some 11 kilometres (six miles) from the attacked villages.
“We have picked up 10 corpses with bullet wounds” in the bush outside the villages of Kwaranglum and Tsaha, he said.
The gunmen dressed as soldiers stormed the villages early Saturday, razing them and shooting residents as they tried to flee, Mark said.
Another resident, Daniel Haruna said the gunmen, aboard all-terrain vehicles and motorcycles, arrived in Kwaranglum around 7:00 am (0600 GMT), firing indiscriminately and torching homes, according to resident Daniel Haruna, who fled to Chibok.
The attacks were in apparent reprisals for the killing of eight Boko Haram fighters by a local vigilante in Kwaranglum on Tuesday, Haruna said.
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