Funeral massacre

Sickening attack by extremists kills more than 60 mourners

MORE than 60 mourners have died after suspected Islamist extremists opened fire on a funeral in northeast Nigeria.

Gunmen, believed to be Boko Haram militants, arrived on motorcycles and in vans at a small village in the state of Borno and shot dead people leaving the ceremony.

At least 65 people died in the carnage, many reportedly killed right away and others murdered as they attempted to chase away the heavily armed attackers.

Eyewitnesses said they saw burnt-out homes and relatives carrying away the bodies of those killed in the sickening barrage.

It is the deadliest extremist attack this year against civilians in the region, where there has been a marked increase in Islamist attacks.

Local government official Muhammad Bulama said 11 other people were wounded during the deadly assault.

Mr Bulama called it a reprisal after villagers and civilian defence forces fought off a Boko Haram ambush in the area two weeks ago, killing 11 extremists.

Nigerians last week marked the grim 10-year anniversary of the Boko Haram insurgency, which has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced millions and created one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises.

The jihadis are known for mass abductions of schoolgirls and putting young women and men into suicide vests for attacks on markets, mosques and other high-traffic areas.

Boko Haram, which loosely translates as “Western education is banned”, is perhaps most infamous for its 2014 kidnapping of 300 girls from a school in Chibok. The extremists, who seek to impose a strict Islamic state in the region, have defied the claims of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration that the insurgency has been crushed.

The violence has spilt into neighbouring Chad, Niger and Cameroon.