MEMBERS OF THE CIVILIAN JTF MOUNT A CHECKPOINT IN BORNO STATE
SAN FRANCISCO, August 27, (THEWILL) – Boko Haram gunmen in Borno State on Tuesday continued their revenge attack on those suspected to be giving information about the sect to security operatives when they killed six members of the youth vigilante group, popularly known as Civilian JTF, at the border town of Damasak in Mobar Local Government Area of the state.
Damasak, which is about 187 kilometres away from Maiduguri, the state capital, and shares border with Niger Republic , is believed to be a safe haven of the gunmen following their dislodgement from their bush camps and Maiduguri by the special security forces.
The youths, simply identified as Ismail Alhaji Bunu,36; Malam Goni,27; Buzu Bukar,27; Mohammed Modu,20; Aliyu Jibrin,30; and Bukar Bako,20 , were said to be traders who had come from Maiduguri to sell their merchandise – women necklace –at the Damasak market before they were shot dead by four gunmen in a house where they were passing the night . One of the deceased was said to be a driver who conveyed them to the town’s market which holds every Monday.
‘’ We were traveling together to Damasak to trade in necklace but I did not sleep in the same house with them. It was in the morning that I learn of their death, ‘’ a member of the youth vigilante group, Kariyama Mohammed, who also went to Damasak but did not pass the night in the same house with the victims, said.
The gunmen who were four in number, according to another resident of the town, shot their victims dead when they were fast asleep before they fled into the bush.
The remains of the deceased were said to have been packed in a pick up van at Sector 1 Headquarters of the JTF in Baga road from where sources said, they were taken to Maiduguri by policemen and later handed over to their families for burial.
Head of the vigilante group in Baga road, A.D Bakura , lamented the death of the youths , saying they were members of the vigilante group who worked unrelentingly to defend the state against the terrorists.
