Dozens killed at Nigerian lakeside village

Suspected Boko Haram militants ambushed a group of fish traders just outside the village of Doron Baga on the shores of Lake Chad, police said Sunday.

Details about the killings remain sketchy. One police source told news agency Reuters that more than 25 people, mostly fishermen, had been shot dead. Another source cited by news agencies put the death toll as high as 48.

"The Boko Haram gunmen slit the throats of some of the men and tied the hands and legs of the others before throwing them into the lake to drown," the head of the region's fish traders association Abubakar Gamandi told news agency AFP.

There was also conflicting information about whether the attack took place on Thursday or on Saturday. The incident was first reported on Sunday due to poor communications, largely caused by Boko Haram's destruction of mobile phone towers in the area.

The lakeside attack follows a similar incident on Wednesday, also in Borno, in which 45 people were killed in the village of Azaya Kura.

Boko Haram heartland

Doron Baga lies some 196 kilometers (121 miles) north of Maiduguri in Nigeria's northeastern Borno state near the border with Chad - a volatile region and the heartland of Boko Haram.

The Nigerian government has been waging a 5-year war against the terror group, which seeks to create an Islamic state in northern Nigeria.

Doron Baga has been caught up in the fighting between Nigerian forces and Boko Haram, and has also been the target of several militant attacks, kidnappings and raids.

In April 2013, more than 2000 homes were destroyed and more than 185 killed in clashes in the fishing town.

Boko Haram is accused of having killed more than 5,000 civilians in the course of an insurgency that began in 2009. More than 2,000 have been killed this year alone, while nearly 650,000 have been displaced.

nm/ipj (Reuters, AFP)