Boko Haram has taken over a whole town and a military base in Borno. That’s bad.
Boko Haram has seized a town and key multinational military base in north-eastern Nigeria, officials and eyewitnesses say.
A senator in Borno state said troops had abandoned the base in the town of Baga after it was attacked on Saturday.
Residents of Baga, who fled by boat to neighbouring Chad, said many people had been killed and the town set ablaze.
Baga, scene of a Nigerian army massacre in 2013, was the last town in the Borno North area under government control.
So a part of Nigeria is now in the hands of Boko Haram. That’s bad.
Maina Maaji Lawan, senator for Borno North, told BBC World Service civilians had run “helter skelter” – “some into the forest, some into the desert”.
Communications with the town were cut off and exact information about casualty numbers could not be confirmed, he said.
“We are very dispirited,” the senator added.
The military simply ran away, he said. The people there find this hugely frustrating, as well they might.