44 people slaughtered in Borno village

In yet another reprisal attack by insurgents, some gunmen Tuesday night slaughtered no fewer than 44 people at Dumba village on the outskirts of Baga town, in Kukawa Local Government Area of Borno State.

Meanwhile, the Presidential Committee on Dialogue and Peaceful Resolution of the security Challenge in the North yesterday displayed video recording of Shura members of the Boko Haram sect where they called on their field commanders to ceasefire as being proposed by the government, saying that prophet Mohammed sanctions dialogue during Jihad.

Sources told our reporter yesterday that about 50 gunmen stormed Dumba village which is some kilometers away from Baga and slaughtered 44 people. Many people were also said to have been injured during the attack that lasted for hours.

It was gathered that the gunmen also set fire on some houses in the village. Baga is about 157 kilometers away from Maiduguri, the State capital and an epicenter of the insurgency which had witnessed series of attacks through bombings and gunshots.

Our correspondent gathered that rescue workers have been mobilized to the area from Maiduguri with the aim of providing medical services to the surviving victims.
The assailants were said to have removed the two eyes of some of the victims while many others had  their bodies decapitated.
A rescue worker told Journalists in Maiduguri that the village came under attack late Tuesday when some unknown gunmen stormed the settlement and killed many people when they were fast asleep.

‘’ As am speaking to you now, Red cross officials and the San Medicine Frontier are attending to the injured victims,” a rescue worker with a federal government agency who does not want to be named said.
According to him, the village has been deserted, as the people are now taking refuge at the Baga central primary school.

A source with the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) who confirmed the incident to our reporter, said the agency has mobilized to the area to access the situation with a view to render humanitarian assistance to the injured victims and those who were psychologically trauma-tized in the attack.
According to him, the agency will on Saturday(today) set up camp  at the Baga central primary school for the displaced victims.

On the ceasefire call by the leaders of Boko Haram on their field commanders, the video recording, according to the chairman of Presidential Committee on Dialogue and Peaceful Resolution of the security Challenge in the North, Barrister Turaki Tanimu, was recorded two weeks ago in the detention facilities in Bauchi where the sect members whom he said, belonged to the highest decision making body of the Boko Haram sect before their arrest by security forces in various locations across the country.

Speaking on the development, Barrister Tanimu  who was   flanked by some members of the committee, said, the video clip is a recording of some members of the Jama’atul Ahli Sunnat Nida’atul Waljihad, (Boko Haram) , ‘who sat down in Shura, the highest decision-making body and analyzed from purely Islamic perspective, taking into account the clear and unambiguous provisions of the Holy Qura’an and taken also into account the teachings and fundamentally the practices of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (SAW) on the issue of dialogue and peaceful reconciliation; strengthening submissions again with the works of other Islamic scholars globally who have had cause in their life times to also make research and came out with a lot of literature supporting the cause on dialogue and stating the parameters and conditions under which dialogue can take place.

The  chairman said the committee was still making efforts towards meeting another set of senior leaders of the group, and a splinter group – Ansaru – even as he said he could not get confirmation from the military operatives in Borno state to confirm the death of the Boko Haram leader, Abubakar Shekau.

Barrister Turaki admitted that there is no clear nexus between this Shura committee and the second-in-command with whom government reportedly secured an earlier peace deal, or with Shekau who is yet to be personally reached.

In the Video which was shown to Journalists, five members of the Shura committee of the sect who spoke in Hausa and Arabic enjoined their colleagues ‘on the field’ to embrace the dialogue being proposed by government as both prophet Mohammed and other Islamic scholars are in support of dialogue with infidels.