[ 2015-03-22 ]

Boko Haram crisis: 100 beheaded, throat-slit bodies found in Nigerian town
Up to 100 bodies, many with their throats slit,
have been found in a mass grave on the edge of a
town in northeast Nigeria after it was freed from
Boko Haram militants.

Soldiers from Chad and Niger who have liberated
Damasak from the Islamist group said they
discovered the bodies under a bridge on one of the
main roads leading out of the town.

Chad's military spokesman Colonel Azem Bermandoa
Agouna said: "There are about 100 bodies spread
around under the bridge just outside the town...
this is the work of Boko Haram."

A Reuters witness said they had counted at least
70 bodies.

Col Agouna, who visited the scene himself close to
the border with Niger, claimed the massacre
probably occurred about two months ago because the
bodies were partially mummified by the dry desert
air.

He said several of the victims had been
decapitated while others had been shot.

"There are heads here and bodies there, the mass
grave has become like a termite mound," he added.

Damasak was seized by Boko Haram in November but
recaptured by troops from Niger and Chad on 9
March as part of a multinational effort to wipe
out the militants.

All but around 50 of the town's residents had fled
by the time Damasak was recaptured. Those who
remained were mostly too old or too sick to
leave.

Damasak resident Mbodou Moussa said: "People were
in town when they (Boko Haram) attacked, they
fired at us, we ran away to the bushes but they
continued to fire and chased some people to kill
them."

Boko Haram has killed thousands of people in a
six-year insurgency aimed at establishing an
Islamic caliphate in northeast Nigeria.

The regional offensive was launched this year with
Chad, Niger and Cameroon as Nigeria, Africa's most
populous country and biggest economy, prepares for
presidential elections on 28 March.

Nigeria's president Goodluck Jonathan has been
criticised for not doing enough to tackle the
insurgency.

His challenger Muhammadu Buhari has campaigned on
a reputation for toughness gained when he was
military ruler of Nigeria in the 1980s.

Source - Sky News

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