17 killed as Boko Haram invades village close to Chibok

The Islamist group Boko Haram is accused of killing 17 people in an attack on a village in Borno State, close to Chibok, where hundreds of schoolgirls were seized.

It comes a day after 118 people died in a twin bomb attack in the central city of Jos, Plateau State, also blamed on Boko Haram.

In the latest attack, Boko Haram fighters reportedly spent hours killing and looting in the village of Alagarno.

Alagarno is near Chibok, from where the schoolgirls were abducted last month.

The abductions caused international outrage and have put pressure on the Nigerian authorities to deal with the threat from Boko Haram.

People in north-east Nigeria are extremely vulnerable to attacks because many areas are no go zones for the military and the insurgents operate freely, the BBC’s Will Ross reports from the country.

Witnesses in Alagarno said the suspected Boko Haram fighters arrived close to midnight, and killed and looted for hours before leaving in stolen vehicles.

One survivor told the BBC that every single building in the village had been torched.

Meanwhile in a fresh indictment on the poor maintenance culture in the country, the surveillance drones which Nigeria bought from Israel years ago that might have been used to hunt for the more than 200 girls held by Islamist rebels, have been left grounded due to poor maintenance, two official sources and the aircraft’s manufacturer have. Said.

“To the best of our knowledge, these systems are not operational,” Tsur Dvir, Marketing Officer for Aeronautics Defence Systems, a firm based south of Tel Aviv that supplied Nigeria with Aerostar unmanned aerial vehicles, said Tuesday.