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Boko Haram crisis: New assault on Nigeria's Baga town | Boko Haram crisis: New assault on Nigeria's Baga town |
(35 minutes later) | |
Nigeria's militant Islamists have carried out a second attack on the key north-eastern town of Baga, an official has told the BBC. | |
Boko Haram fighters burnt down almost the entire town on Wednesday, after over-running a military base on Saturday, Musa Alhaji Bukar said. | Boko Haram fighters burnt down almost the entire town on Wednesday, after over-running a military base on Saturday, Musa Alhaji Bukar said. |
Bodies lay strewn on Baga's streets, amid fears that some 2,000 people had been killed in the raids, he added. | Bodies lay strewn on Baga's streets, amid fears that some 2,000 people had been killed in the raids, he added. |
Boko Haram launched a military campaign in 2009 to create an Islamic state. | Boko Haram launched a military campaign in 2009 to create an Islamic state. |
It has taken control of many towns and villages in north-eastern Nigeria in the last year. | |
Mr Bukar, a senior government official in the area, said that fleeing residents told him that the town, which had a population of about 10,000, was now "virtually non-existent". | |
"It has been burnt down," he said. | |
Those who fled reported that they had been unable to bury the dead, and corpses littered the town's streets, he said. | |
Boko Haram was effectively in control of Baga and 16 neighbouring towns, Mr Bukar said. | |
Government troops abandoned the military base in Baga on Saturday, when the militants launched an assault. | |
It hosted the Multi-National Joint Task Force (MNJTF), made up of troops from Nigeria, Chad and Niger. | |
Set up in 1998 to fight trans-border crime in the Lake Chad region, the force more recently took on Boko Haram. | |
Thousands have fled Baga - many to Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state, and others to Chad. | |
A large number reportedly drown as they crossed Lake Chad following Saturday's raid. |