Nigerian forces backed by air strikes are fighting to reclaim the northeastern town of Baga from Islamist militant group Boko Haram which seized the town and a nearby military base at the weekend, a government spokesman said on Friday.
“Since the first attack last weekend on Baga, security forces have been actively pursuing the militants,” Mike Omeri said in a statement.
“Security forces have responded rapidly, and have deployed significant military assets and conducted air strikes.”
Bodies lay strewn on the streets of a key north-eastern Nigerian town following an assault by militant Islamists, officials have told the BBC.
The Boko Haram group attacked Baga town on Wednesday, after over-running a military base there on Saturday, they said.
Almost the entire town had been torched and the militants were now raiding nearby areas, they added.
There are fears that some 2,000 had been killed in the raids, other reports put the number in the hundreds.
Mr Lawan, the senator for northern Borno, called on government troops to stop “dilly-dallying” and to fight back to protect residents.
“The indiscriminate killings went on and on and on,” he told BBC Focus on Africa.
Boko Haram’s offensive continued on Thursday, with its fighters setting up checkpoints and killing people who were hiding in the bush, the senator said.
Massacre in Baga could be the worst in the history of Boko Haram. As many as 2,000 thought to be killed.
An Amnesty International statement said there are reports the town was razed and as many as 2,000 people killed.
If true, “this marks a disturbing and bloody escalation of Boko Haram’s ongoing onslaught,” said Daniel Eyre, Nigeria researcher for Amnesty International.
Boko Haram violence has killed more than 10,000 people last year alone, according to the Washington-based Council on Foreign Relations.
Witnesses who escaped to neighbouring towns and Borno state capital Maiduguri said the insurgents had razed many buildings and homes and killed dozens in subsequent raids on civilians this week.
Soldiers had fled the area after the nearby army base, which is the headquarters of a multinational force comprising troops from Chad, Niger and Cameroon, by Lake Chad was overrun.
Boko Haram has been waging a five-year insurgency to carve out an Islamic state in northeastern Nigeria.
Omeri said the government’s National Emergency Management Agency, working with the Red Cross, was providing humanitarian assistance to 2,000 internally displaced people from Baga.About 2,000 also crossed the border to Chad over the last week, prompting the country to call for international aid. Cameroon has also appealed for aid to help fight the militants.
