BREAKING NEWS: Boko Haram, Dressed In Military Uniform have Shot 44 people dead in Borno mosque

Suspected Islamist extremists have shot dead 44 worshippers in an attack on a mosque in Nigeria’s restive northeast, a senior government official said on Monday.

“Gunmen believed to be Boko Haram members entered the mosque and opened fire on Muslim worshippers, killing 44,” the official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak publicly of the attack in the remote town of Konduga on Sunday. A hospital security guard, who pleaded anonymity at the Accident and Emergency ward of the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital, confirmed to PREMIUM TIMES that 26 persons were brought to the hospital on Sunday.

“Some are admitted here in the A and E ward and others have been taken to the Amenity Ward; we are under instructions not to allow visitors into the ward, please,” said the security guard.

The Konduga attack coincided with a similar attack on Ngom village, 5km east of Maiduguri, where about 12 villagers were killed.

An operative of the vigilante in Maiduguri tagged Civilian-JTF, Usman Musa, told reporters in Maiduguri that a troop of soldiers and youth vigilante had been deployed to Konduga on Sunday but met a fierce resistance from the heavily armed terrorists.

“We lost four of our members in the Civilian-JTF when they arrived Konduga yesterday, I don’t know about the soldiers; but it was a very bad incident yesterday. Some of our members made it back on foot through bush paths this morning,” Musa said.

The Military Joint Task Force, JTF, is yet to speak on the latest Borno Killings while some Nigerians have continued to question the effectiveness of the State of Emergency in Borno and neighbouring Yobe and Adamawa states as the killings by insurgents continue.

The Boko Haram leader, Abubakar Shekau, has in a video, claimed the responsibility for the killings in Konduga and earlier ones in Gamboru and others that led to the death of at least 14 soldiers.