At least 30 people were killed in three attacks by Islamists in northeastern Nigeria, local officials and inhabitants said Wednesday, days ahead of a meeting between President Muhammadu Buhari and Barack Obama.
Boko Haram has killed more than 660 people in a month and a half.
In the deadliest attack on Tuesday afternoon, more than 20 people were killed outside the town of Ngamdu, local legislator Mohammed Sando told AFP.
“Boko Haram gunmen… yesterday set up a barricade on the Damaturu-Maiduguri highway just outside Ngamdu, and attacked motorists. They killed over 20,” Sando said.
“They then moved to Ngamdu and began to set houses on fire. Last week they burnt almost half the village in a similar raid,” he added.
“Some houses in Ngamdu were smouldering when I passed this morning. I learned from some passengers I took from Ngamdu that Boko Haram invaded the village in the evening and began burning homes after attacking motorists on the highway.
They said that many people were killed on the highway, by the attackers,” Kabil told AFP.
Near Baga, which is located northeast of Ngamdu, Boko Haram attacked residents who had decided to return home from state capital Maiduguri, where they had been living since January after fleeing one of the worst Boko Haram massacres in the group’s six-year insurgency.
