Civilian militia members and locals on Saturday said at least seven people were killed when Boko Haram terrorists attacked an Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camp in northeast Nigeria.
The attack on Friday evening in Ngala town, near the border with Cameroon, came as two people were killed in an explosion outside another camp in Borno state capital, Maiduguri.
In Ngala, a civilian militia member, Umar Kachalla, said the terrorists in two pick-up trucks fired a rocket-propelled grenade at the camp, which houses some 80,000 people.
“They fired an RPG into the camp from behind the fire fence, killing seven people and injuring several others,” he told AFP, saying they let off a bout of sustained gunfire as they drove away into the night.
Ngala resident Abubakar Yusuf, who corroborated Kachalla’s account, said: “The casualties were relatively minimal because most people had retired for the night.”
The camp in Ngala was set up in January last year after the return of thousands of Nigerian refugees from Cameroon, where they had fled the fighting.
Boko Haram seized the trading hubs Ngala and neighbouring Gamboru in August 2014 when it took over a swathe of territory across Borno state and the wider northeast.
Nigerian troops retook both towns in September 2015 with the help of Chadian forces.
However, Boko Haram fighters still launch sporadic attacks, laying ambush to troops and vehicles as well as attacking and abducting farmers.
