11 soldiers died in Baga Army base attack

Maj. Gen. Kenneth Minimah, Chief of Army Staff

Over 11 soldiers and scores of civilians were reportedly killed when the Boko Haram sect attacked the army base in Baga, Borno State on Saturday, a security source and witnesses said on Monday.

The Islamists attacked the northeastern town of Baga and the barracks on its outskirts on Saturday, potentially providing a launchpad for more attacks in the country and other neighbouring nations.

Lying at the end of a semi-desert road, Baga is the headquarters of a multinational force comprising troops from Niger, Nigeria, Chad and Cameroon.

Soldiers and civilians had fled the town after the attack on the Army base.

The group’s five year insurgency to establish an Islamic state has killed many thousands in Africa’s top economy and most populous nation. More than 10,000 died in the violence last year, the Council on Foreign Relations says.

Witnesses who escaped to the bush said they ran past the bodies of soldiers and civilians along the way.

“I was hiding on a tree top since that Saturday night until this morning at 3 a.m.,” Abubakar Usman, a Baga resident, told Reuters by telephone.

A military source said at least 11 soldiers had been killed along with a large number of civilians around the town, which was still in the militants’ hands on Monday.

He said they set fire to houses and shot at residents as they tried to flee. The military did not immediately respond to a request for official comment.

Another witness, who gave his name only as Yusuf, said he tripped and fell as he tried to flee the town. When he got up, he saw about 20 bodies scattered along the ground where he was.

On Saturday, it was reported that the sect killed 15 people when they attacked a bus in Cameroon.