At least 180 civilians have been killed in fierce fighting between Nigerian security forces and members of the radical Islamist sect Boko Haram in the north of the African nation, media reports citing local officials said late on Sunday.
Fighting is said to have erupted in the remote town of Baga, near the border with Chad, on Friday evening. Officials said both sides used rocket-propelled grenades and heavy gunfire in the fighting, which destroyed at least 200 homes.
The battle is said to have lasted for several hours, prompting Baga residents to flee the town. Media reports said most of the town had been destroyed by blazes triggered by the fighting. At least 185 charred bodies, most of them beyond recognition, have been found and buried so far, the reports said.
Boko Haram, based in Northern Nigeria, wants to create an Islamic state in Nigeria's predominantly Muslim north. The radical sect also campaigns aggressively against Western education, which it considers anti-Islamic.
More than 3,500 people are believed to have been killed since the terror outfit began its campaign of violence four years ago. Boko Haram came into prominence in July 2009, when hundreds of its members were killed in fighting Nigerian security forces in the north-eastern city of Maiduguri, including its founder-leader Mohammed Yusuf.
The sect has since carried out numerous bomb and gun-attacks on churches, schools, police stations, military facilities, banks, and liquor outlets in northern Nigeria. It also claimed responsibility for the deadly car bomb attack on the U.N. building in Abuja in 2011 as well as a suicide-bomb attack targeting the police headquarters in the Nigerian capital earlier that year.
Earlier this month, the Nigerian government had set up a panel to look into the feasibility of offering an amnesty deal to Boko Haram members to end its campaign of terror. But Boko leader Abubakar Shekau has since rejected the proposal, insisting that his group had not done anything wrong warranting a pardon.
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