Survivors are reporting a group of Boko Haram attacked the village of Dalori on Saturday night, firebombing huts and burning a good chunk of the village down, leaving scores of civilians burned to death, many of them children.
The village is just three miles outside of Maiduguri, a major northeastern city, yet nearly four hours of attacks before the Nigerian military finally managed to get enough troops with heavy weapons into the area to fight them off, as their first dispatch to the village was quickly overwhelmed.
At least 86 bodies have been recovered from the scene, and another 62 are recovering from serious burns. Such attacks on undefended villages across northeastern Nigeria have become common for Boko Haram, as a way to show up the military for its inability to fend them off.
Such attacks have fueled a massive exodus of refugees from areas deemed to be likely Boko Haram targets, with millions displaced in the region. The Nigerian government has repeatedly claimed the war against Boko Haram is well in hand, and has at times even claimed the group is already “defeated.