Once Again, Boko Haram Attacks Damboa Village (Bornu State), Scores Feared Dead

Residents of Damboa village said they are still picking piles of corpses after Boko Haram gunmen Friday morning invaded the besieged town, 85km south of Maiduguri, shooting and killing defenceless villagers and setting homes ablaze.

A top security official (names withheld) from Maiduguri confirmed the attack but said no details on extent of damage yet.
Vigilante official, Abbas Gava, told Echoesinn blogger that “the death casualty could be very high because my contacts in Damboa said they are still picking and piling the corpses, but many houses, nearly half of what remains of the several attacked town has been burnt”.
Gava promised to get more details on the number of deaths recorded.
He said the gunmen crept upon the villagers who were about to perform the early dawn prayers.

Since the Sunday of fortnight ago, when Boko Haram gunmen walked over a military base killings dozen of soldiers and four police men in Damboa, Boko Haram gunmen had laid siege along the road leading from Maiduguri to Damboa, and had forced soldiers going to the attacked base for evacuation of its destroyed munitions, to turn back by launching some ambush shooting on them twice. Two more soldiers were reported dead in one of the ambush attack. But the soldiers were able to
return fire from an armoured tanker at a sniper with Rocket Launcher who was firing from atop a tree, while others were shooting from the surrounding bushes, a witness said.

Boko Haram had also cut off access to Damboa from the southern part of the road coming from Biu town, 100km away from Damboa by blowing down a major bridge on the highway at a hamlet called Sabongari last Monday.

Damboa, an agrarian village where Borno state sourced most of its grocery and fruits supply, had suffered several attacks in the past two years, reasons of the newly established 7 Division of the Nigeria Army to establish operational
base called 33 Tank Battalion in Damboa.
But since after the last attack before today’s (18th July, 2014) neither the soldiers nor the police could return back to Damboa. The embattled few villagers were left at the protection of the sticks and Dane guns-carrying youth vigilante called Civilian-JTF.

Courtesy:
African Spotlight