The Boko Haram insurgency in the North-Eastern part of Nigeria is showing no sign of abating as the border town of Gamboru-Ngala in Borno State was yesterday rocked by gunfire and explosions.
This also comes as the Joint Task Force (JTF) yesterday imposed a 24-hour curfew on Potiskum, the commercial nerve centre of neighboring Yobe State to check waves of insurgent activities in the affected areas.
According to a resident of Gamboru-Ngala, the clashes broke out on Monday night and continued yesterday, with at least, 20 people killed so far.
The military is yet to comment on the situation as the details remain unclear.
A resident said the fighting began after someone who runs errands for immigration officers was shot and wounded.
“We have been bombarded with explosions and sounds of gunfire since yesterday evening, and I have counted 20 corpses so far on the streets,” the resident said.
Residents over the border in Cameroon also reported hearing gunshots.
Meanwhile, a round-the-clock curfew had been imposed on Potiskum as soldiers carried out house-to-house searches.
The military did not say why it moved to suddenly impose the curfew on Potiskum or provide other details. The operation came ahead of the Muslim Eid-el-Fitr holiday which follows the fasting month of Ramadan.
In Potiskum, residents said soldiers were conducting house-to-house searches in two neighbourhoods and word had spread in the town that troops were looking for high-profile members of Islamist extremist group Boko Haram.
“The Joint Task Force announces the imposition of a 24-hour curfew commencing from today,” a military statement said late Monday.
“Residents of Potiskum town are enjoined to remain calm and cooperate with security agencies by remaining indoors until the curfew is lifted.”
It gave no indication of how long the curfew would remain in place. Nigeria will celebrate Eid al-Fitr on Thursday and Friday.
“I have been able to contact some people in other parts of town and from what I gathered there is a huge military deployment in town and that house-to-house searches have begun in two areas,” resident Kabiru Ahmed said.
Ahmed’s account was corroborated by another resident.
It is unlikely that the situations in the two towns are linked as they are hundreds of kilometres apart.
The clashes and military operation came in the wake of fighting in two other north-eastern towns on Sunday that left at least 35 people dead, most of them insurgents, according to the military.
Those clashes broke out in the towns of Bama and Malam Fatori and were triggered by attacks on soldiers and a police station, the military said.
Nigeria’s northeast is currently under a state of emergency as the military pursues an offensive seeking to end Boko Haram’s four-year insurgency.
The insurgency is estimated to have claimed more than 3,600 lives since 2009, including killings by the security forces.
It also led to the imposition of a state of emergency in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa States, the three most affected states.