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May 30, 2015: People throng the streets near the site
of an explosion in Maiduguri, Nigeria. (AP)
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Boko Haram
Islamists raided two towns in northeastern Nigeria, torching public buildings
and looting food and fuel stores, residents and a police officer told AFP on
Sunday.
Islamist gunmen in pick-up trucks and on motorcycles
stormed the towns of Galda and Fika in Yobe state late Saturday, firing wildly
and forcing residents indoors.
The latest violence in the region comes shortly after
President Muhammadu Buhari took office on Friday vowing to crush the Islamist
group that has waged a six-year insurgency.
After repelling a military offensive, Boko Haram
stormed Fika, 150 kilometres (95 miles) from the state capital Damaturu,
burning a police station and public buildings including a law court, a local
administration building and a primary school.
"Boko Haram gunmen came in two pick-up trucks and
on several motorcycles around 9:00 pm (2000 GMT) and kept firing shots
haphazardly and firing RPGs on the police station where they forced the
policemen to flee and residents to run indoors," Fika resident Abubakar
Maigoro said.
The Islamists also torched a cluster of
government-built homes for civil servants and 13 vehicles parked outside
people's houses, Maigoro said.
"They burnt all the telecom masts in the town and
we have to go to hill tops in the bush where we can get phone signals to make
calls," resident Ibrahim Sagir said.
No information on casualties is available because
communications are down.
Troops who mobilised from Potiskum, 50 kilometres (30
miles) away, to combat the Islamists were outgunned and forced to withdraw
after intense fighting, Maigoro and Sagir said.
Boko Haram radicals also attacked Galda, 20 kilometres
(12 miles) from Fika, at around 8 pm (1900 GMT).
"The gunmen stormed our town firing everywhere to
scare people away before breaking into shops and carting away food and jerry
cans of petrol," resident Muhammad Garba said.
A police officer in Potiskum confirmed the accounts.
"Fika and Galda came under attack from Boko Haram
last night. They burnt several public buildings in Fika and looted shops in
Galda,"he said, asking not to be named because he was not authorized to
speak to the media.
"Soldiers deployed from here but they were
overpowered by the gunmen," he said.
"We are yet to receive any report on casualties.
Communication with the area has been disrupted as a result of the burning of
telecom masts in the attacks."
The reports of the raids came after a deadly suicide
bombing inside a mosque in the city of Maiduguri killed at least nine people on
Saturday just a day after Buhari was sworn in.
Overnight
Friday, residents in a suburb south of the same city woke to the sound of RPGs
being fired as Boko Haram tried to advance.
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