At least 46 people died in Nigeria’s northeastern state of Borno when a militia formed by mainly Christian villages clashed with Boko Haram Islamists.
Islamist gunmen who attacked the villages of Attangara and Agapalwa in the Gwoza district of Borno on June 1 were ambushed by a local militia that killed 37 of them, Titus Ponna, a church minister and chairman of the state chapter of the Christian Association of Nigeria, said yesterday by phone from the state capital, Maiduguri. At least nine villagers died in the fighting, he said.
“These villages are over 80 percent Christian and the Boko Haram have in the last two weeks attacked them, killing many villagers,” Ponna said. “But they were able to defend themselves and killed 37 Boko Haram members.”