Boko Haram 'kill several' as they loot market

Kano - Boko Haram gunmen stormed a crowded
market in Borno State, killing several people and
carting away food, witnesses said on Saturday.
Dressed in military and police uniforms, dozens of
insurgents attacked the town of Mainok, 56
kilometres outside Maiduguri, the state capital
late Thursday, firing a rocket-propelled grenade
and spraying the market with bullets.
The attackers also looted food which they loaded
onto trucks abandoned by fleeing traders,
witnesses said.
"They struck around 13:30 during peak hours by
first firing a rocket-propelled grenade at the
market before opening fire on traders", Salman
Lawan, a trader who witnessed the carnage told
AFP.
"They killed several people in the attack but it is
difficult to give a precise figure," said Lawan who
fled to Maiduguri following the attack.
Another trader Modu Kachalla, who gave a similar
account, said the insurgents were looking for
cash and food.
"They robbed traders of cash and loaded food
into trucks they seized at the market before
fleeing into the bush," he said.
"The market was full... when the Boko Haram
gunmen attacked which explained the high
casualties," he said.
"The attackers killed many people at the market
but it is difficult to give a toll because everybody
fled to save their lives," said Ibrahim Kolo,
another witness.
Boko Haram, which has seized swathes of
territory in Borno and in neighbouring Yobe and
Adamawa states, has been running short of food
in the areas they have taken, according to
residents.
On Wednesday the insurgents ambushed a truck
carrying grain to Maiduguri outside the nearby
village of Ngamdu and looted it before setting it
on fire, they said.
The news of the attack on the market was slow
to emerge due to disruption in phone services in
the region on Friday. Telecoms services were only
restored on Saturday.
Mainok has suffered repeated attacks by Boko
Haram, which wants to impose a hardline Islamic
state in the mainly Muslim north.
In February scores were killed there and many
homes destroyed by the extremists.
Their insurgency has claimed more than 10 000
lives since 2009 and left more than 700 000
homeless.
The military has come under increasing pressure
as the Islamists have captured more territory in
the volatile northeast in recent weeks.