Jihadists in northeast Nigeria attacked a military base overnight, sending 5,000 civilians fleeing over the border to Cameroon, security sources and witnesses said on Friday.
This year has seen a resurgence of violence by Boko Haram and its rival offshoot, Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), both engaged in a long-running insurgency in the west African country.
The overnight attack on the towns of Banki and Freetown, both near the Cameroon border, come less than a fortnight after an assault on displaced people resettled from the conflict in nearby Darul Jamal, in which around 90 people were killed.
Witnesses blaming Boko Haram said militants struck Banki around midnight and that one civilian was killed in the ensuing gun battle between troops and insurgents.
“Everywhere people were screaming and running,” resident Amina Bakari told AFP after fleeing across the border.
Ayuba Isa, the second-in-command at the Banki military base, said the attackers tried to overrun the base before reinforcements arrived and repelled them.
“Our men fought bravely and we were able to push them back,” he said. “Unfortunately, civilians had already fled and many homes were destroyed.”
A security monitoring report produced for the United Nations and seen by AFP said the attackers belonged to ISWAP.
It said the air force was called in to provide support and the attack was stopped but two soldiers and two civilians were killed and 5,000 people fled across the border to Cameroon.
An air force spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.
Although violence has waned since its peak between 2013 and 2015, Boko Haram and ISWAP still hold sway across swathes of Nigeria’s rural northeast.
Since 2009, the conflict has killed more than 40,000 civilians and forced more than two million people to flee their homes, according to the UN
𝗙𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗼𝘄 𝗢𝘂𝗿 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁𝘀𝗔𝗽𝗽 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗹 𝗧𝗼 𝗚𝗲𝘁 𝗟𝗮𝘁𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗡𝗲𝘄𝘀 𝗔𝘀 𝗜𝘁'𝘀 𝗗𝗿𝗼𝗽!
