An explosion killed at least three people outside an army barracks in the northeastern city of Gombe on Sunday, witnesses said, as local leaders reported the death count from a string of earlier attacks had reached 110.
?”I heard a loud sound and then black smoke covering the place … We saw soldiers moving bodies,” Gombe trader Bello Kasuwankatako told Reuters.
“The insurgents came and said they wanted to discuss something with us. They said we need to discuss some issues bordering on our differences in the communities but they opened fire on people who were gathered,” said Kaka.
On Wednesday, gunmen rounded up more villagers outside Borno’s state capital Maiduguri saying they were going to deliver a sermon, then opened fire, killing at least 42, said a police source.
“It seems they are moving to rural areas,” Hannah Donges, a researcher at the Small Arms Survey, told Reuters. “They are easier targets … It doesn?t need sophisticated tactics. It makes them (Boko Haram) less predictable.”
Suspected Boko Haram militants attacked a town in Cameroon’s far north on Saturday but local security forces fought them off, killing at least two gunmen, Cameroon’s government said. The militant group is also thought to be active in neighbouring Niger and Chad.
