Suspected Boko Haram insurgents killed 35 people and took at least 185 in the village of Gumburi on Sunday night, witnesses said.
No one has yet claimed responsibility for the incident, but many believe that Boko Haram is behind the attack as the group had launched a similar assault before. Gumburi is 20 kilometers from Chibok, the town where the Islamic extremist group kidnapped 276 schoolgirls in April.
Aji Ibrahim, a teenager who escaped the attack, told the Associated Press, "No doubt they were Boko Haram members because they were chanting 'Allahu akbar' (God is great) while shooting at people and torching houses."
News of the Sunday abduction, in which most of those taken were young women, children, and members of a group fighting Boko Haram, emerged only on Thursday after survivors reached Maiduguri, reported BBC.
The militants had destroyed communication towers in the region and roads remained impassable, delaying the spread of news.
Maina Chibok, who was not in Gumburi during the attack but went to the village shortly afterwards, said, "They gathered the people, shot dead over 30 people and took away more than 100 women and children in two open-top trucks."
Chibok added, "They also burnt down a government medical centre, houses and shops."
Umar Ari, one of the Gumburi residents who fled to Maiduguri, said militants stormed the village from two directions.
Another resident, Modu Kalli, recounted that the attackers used heavy machine guns and poured gasoline on houses to set them on fire.
Kalli said, "We lost everything in the attack. I escaped with nothing, save the clothes I have on me."
The militant group, which aims to create an Islamic state in Nigeria, has terrorised the country regularly since 2009. It had already seized a number of towns and villages and continues to attack police, civilians, schools, churches, and government buildings. According to a U.S. Congressional Research Service report, at least 5,000 people have already died in the hands of Boko Haram.
