No fewer than 19 persons were on Sunday killed at Malari village, Borno State by Boko Haram insurgents.
An aid worker at a camp for Internally Displaced Persons, IDP, in Monguno, a town in Borno, said hundreds of survivors from villages in the area have fled to the IDP camp.
This is even as the Army denied reports that 50 soldiers were lost to Boko Haram insurgents.
Abatcha Umar, a witness, who noted that the attack took place in the early hours of Sunday, said he counted 19 bodies, including that of his younger brother.
He added that the militants were spotted around the village three days before their attack and that residents informed soldiers stationed in the nearby town of Gudumbali, but lamented that no action was taken.
An aid worker at a camp that received the survivors, and who declined to be identified, put the death toll at 63.
Boko Haram fighters, according to Reuters, reportedly arrived in trucks firing guns and rocket-propelled grenades.
The attack comes weeks after many soldiers were killed in an ambush in the North-East, as Boko Haram has continued to carry out attacks in the region, despite efforts by government to subdue the group.
Meanwhile, Nigerian Army has denied media reports that it lost over 50 soldiers to Boko Haram terrorists.
The Army said the report which it described as false, was one of the many strategies of the Boko Haram terrorists to deceived unsuspected public from knowing the many successes being recorded by the military in the ongoing war against terrorism.
Director of Army Public Relations, Brigadier General Texas Chukwu, reacting to the report in a telephone interview with Vanguard in Abuja yesterday, insisted that troops in the North East were intact, asking Nigerians not to fall prey to the terrorists’ antics.
Chukwu particularly pleaded with the mainstream media not to believe stories he noted the terrorists were planting in some social media platforms.
The Army spokesman, who told Vanguard he was right in Maiduguri, Borno State, appealed to all Nigerians to stop taking the claim of terrorists seriously.
He said, “There’s no attack against the military and our troops are intact. We didn’t lost any troops, let alone the number you mentioned to have been killed by the terrorists.
“In fact, as I’m talking to you now, I’m right in Maiduguri, Borno State, heading somewhere with some of your colleagues in the state.
“There’s nothing like attack or killing of troops as being claimed. Where did they even get the story that the terrorists kill our men from?
Asked whether there was any attack launched against the troops by terrorists recently, he said: “No, the way you in the media are promoting Boko Haram is too much. I have been in Maiduguri since Sunday morning . I’m not even going to Abuja now. So there’s nothing like that.”
