Moses Ofodeme
A four-hour gruesome attack by Boko Haram terrorists in Auno, community near Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, on Sunday night left no fewer than 30 people, including infants, dead.
The victims were consumed by the fire set to their houses and the vehicles inside which they were sleeping by the insurgents who arrived in the village on motorcycles.
Villagers said the victims arrived at the military checkpoint leading into Maiduguri after the 5pm closure of the gate and had no choice but to sleep in Auno, the neighbouring village on the Maiduguri-Damaturu Highway.
The villagers, while narrating their ordeal in the hands of the terrorist group on Sunday night to the Borno State Governor, Prof. Babagana Zulum, said many persons were abducted.
They lamented that 18 vehicles comprising trailers, buses and cars were burnt by the insurgents who laid siege to the village at about 9.50 pm on Sunday.
The villagers, who were still in shock when the governor visited them on Monday morning, said women and children were loaded into three buses and driven away.
The villagers lamented that most of those that were attacked were those that could not get into Maiduguri on Sunday as the gate to the town was shut against them having failed to arrive before the 5pm deadline.
One of the villagers, who spoke to journalists in confidence, said, “It is so sad as the Boko Haram seems to have targeted the people knowing that many would have to sleep in Auno as the gate to Maiduguri would have been shut against them by 5pm.”
The governor, who was visibly shaken when he saw the charred bodies of the victims of the attack, requested the military authorities to dismantle the Auno gate from its present position and move it further away from the village so that it would be more difficult for the insurgents to gain access into the village.
He said the Borno State Government would assist those whose vehicles were destroyed in the attack as well as those whose goods were burnt alongside the vehicles transporting foodstuff and other wares to Maiduguri.
Meanwhile president Muhammadu Buhari has commiserated with family of victims of attacks at Auno village, along Damaturu – Maiduguri Road, assuring them that his administration will continually frustrate the devilish operations of Boko Haram, and bring it to an end.
In a statement by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Malam Garba Shehu, in Abuja on Monday, President Buhari condemned “murderous and cowardly” attack on innocent passengers by the Boko Haram terrorists near Maiduguri.
According to him, his administration is ever determined to frustrate their goal to hold Nigeria to ransom.
He said: “The commitment of this administration to protect the lives of Nigerians will not be derailed by the cowardly and indiscriminate violence against innocent people by Boko Haram terrorists.”
The president, who also condoled with Borno State Government over the attacks, warned that ”terrorists are clearly on a back foot and their days are numbered”.
He added that: “As our armed forces continue to receive more hardware and intelligence to counter our current security challenges, the remnants of Boko Haram will ultimately be crushed.
”The peculiar challenges of asymmetric warfare notwithstanding, our Armed Forces are ever determined to defeat these enemies of humanity.”
