Fighting between Nigeria’s military and Islamist extremists killed at least 185 people in a fishing community in the nation’s far northeast, officials said on Sunday.
The fighting in Baga began Friday and lasted for hours, sending people fleeing into the arid scrublands surrounding the community on Lake Chad. Insurgents fired rocket-propelled grenades and soldiers sprayed machine-gun fire into neighborhoods filled with civilians.
By Sunday, when government officials felt safe enough to view the destruction, they found homes, businesses and vehicles were burned throughout the area.
The assault marks a significant escalation in the long-running insurgency Nigeria faces in its predominantly Muslim north, with extremists mounting a coordinated assault on soldiers using military-grade weaponry.
Authorities said they had found and buried the bodies of at least 185 people as of Sunday afternoon.
Brig. Gen. Austin Edokpaye said the extremists used heavy machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades in the assault, which began after soldiers surrounded a mosque they believed housed members of the radical Islamic extremist network Boko Haram.
Edokpaye said extremists used civilians as human shields during the fighting – implying that soldiers opened fire in neighborhoods where they knew civilians lived.
“When we reinforced and returned to the scene, the terrorists came out with heavy firepower, including (rocket-propelled grenades), which usually has a conflagration effect,” the general said.
The burned bodies of cattle and goats still filled the streets on Sunday. Bullet holes marred burned buildings.
“Everyone has been in the bush since Friday night; we started returning back to town because the governor came to town today,” grocer Bashir Isa said. “To get food to eat in the town now is a problem, because even the markets are burnt. We are still picking corpses of women and children in the bush and creeks.”
The Islamic insurgency in Nigeria grew out of a 2009 riot led by Boko Haram members in Maiduguri, which ended in a military and police crackdown that killed some 700 people. The group’s leader died in police custody in an apparent execution. From 2010 on, Islamic extremists have engaged in hit-and-run shootings and suicide bombings, attacks that have killed at least 1,548 people before Friday’s assault, according to an Associated Press count.
Read more: guardian.co.uk
