“Most of the victims were slaughtered and most of the wounded (had suffered) machete cuts,” Mustapha Karimbe, a civilian helping the Nigerian military fight Boko Haram, said of Saturday’s attacks in the villages of Warwara, Mangari and Bura-Shika in Borno state.
News of the attacks has been slow to emerge because telecom masts in the area have been destroyed in previous Boko Haram raids, hindering communication.
The Islamists invaded the villages, hacking and slaughtering their victims before setting the villages on fire.
The villages are near Buratai, the hometown of Nigeria’s highest military chief Tukur Yusuf Buratai.
Nigeria’s government has vowed to end the Boko Haram insurgency by this month but the deadline looks likely to be missed as attacks persist.
The Islamists’ grip on the region has suffered as a result of offensives launched by local armies, leading to raids like Saturday’s becoming rarer.
There has, however, been a spike in suicide attacks in Nigeria and neighbouring Cameroon, Chad and Niger.
At least 17,000 people have been killed since the conflict began in 2009.
A new 8,700-strong Multi-national Joint Task Force (MNJTF) comprising troops from Nigeria, Niger, Chad, Cameroon and Benin was supposed to have been deployed in late July.
But the African Union-backed force has yet to start operations, with no reason given for the lengthening delay and questions over whether the countries have the resources to commit
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