Many residents were forced to stay indoors after Boko Haram on Tuesday evening launched a daring attack on Damaturu, the Yobe State capital; forcing the town into a lockdown as vehicles were not allowed in or out of the town.
Some residents of Maisandari were quoted as saying the attackers came through the eastern part of the town in Hilux vans mounted with anti-aircraft guns and started shooting sporadically.
Heavy gunfire exchanges were heard as the military engaged the Islamic terrorist insurgents, who were said to have gained entry into the town through Maisandari, on the outskirts of the capital city. Some of the residents of mainland Damaturu confirmed seeing heavily armed soldiers in four armored carriers and many Hilux vans advancing toward Maisandari, where the insurgents entered the town.
One of the residents, Sani Ahmed, was quoted as also saying the shooting was first heard at about 5.00pmm when suspected Boko Haram militants attempted to invade the Red Bricks Housing Estate along Maiduguri road, in Damaturu, the Yobe state capital.
He said there were heavy sound of gunshots and explosions and that a fighter jet was seen hovering on Damaturu. At press time, there was no official confirmation of the attack but a high ranking officer of the police in Yobe who preferred anonymity, however confirmed the attack.
The attack on Damaturu came after some 2000 people were forcefully evacuated from the village of Jakana and taken to the city of Maiduguri, the Borno state capital, about 40 km (25 miles) away. They were taken “for their safety as a result of ongoing operations to flush out insurgents in the area”, said Abdulkadir Ibrahim, a spokesman for the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA).
Evacuees told AFP that soldiers had come to their homes that morning and told them to get into trucks. They had no time to pick up their possessions. Around 27,000 people have died since Boko Haram launched its bloody insurgency nearly a decade ago.
The jihadists have in the last few weeks been under assault from intensive air and ground offensives from coalition forces involving Nigeria, Chad and Cameroon against militant camps in Lake Chad, according to military sources and militia groups.
