About 50 gunmen suspected to be members of the Boko Haram sect have again attacked Dumba village on the outskirts of Baga town in Kukawa Council of Borno State, killing about 44 people by slitting their throats without firing a single gunshot.

A report of the incident in The Guardian quoted an eyewitness as saying that besides the killing of the villagers, several house were torched by the attackers, while 25 villagers sustained injuries.

The paper said it learnt that rescue workers of the Nigeria Red Cross (NRC) have arrived the area from the state capital Maiduguri to provide medical services to the survivors of the attack.

It quoted an NRC source as saying: “When our rescue team reached the village on Thursday, some of the eyes of victims had been removed by the gunmen and we don’t know the motives behind removing such organs after the victims had been killed.

“The attack occurred in the early hours of Wednesday before we rushed to the village, near Baga town, where over 150 people were killed by the same Boko Haram sect members last April.”

The source further disclosed that NRC Medicine Frontier officials were attending to the injured victims, adding that the village has been deserted and the people are taking refuge at the Baga Central Primary School.

An official of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) also confirmed the incident, saying the agency had equally mobilised to the area to assess the situation.

According to him, the agency would today set up camps for the resettlement of displaced Dumba villagers at the primary school.

Spokesman of the Joint Task Force (JTF), Lt. Col Sagir Musa confirmed the incident Friday in Maiduguri.

The paper noted that “since the dislodgement of Boko Haram insurgents from Maiduguri, attacks on local government headquarters, towns and villages have been on the increase,” adding that “early this month, 47 persons were killed in Konduga while praying in a mosque in a dawn attack.”

News Express reports that the latest killings took place barely three days after the JTF announced tat Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau had died from gunshot wounds even though it has yet to back up the claim with any evidence.

Upwards of 4,000 people are estimated to have died in Boko Haram’s campaign of violence, largely in Nigeria’s North-East, which started in 2009.

•Photo shows Nigerian troops searching for Boko Haram insurgents in Borno.

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