Lagos (AFP) - Leading human rights groups on Thursday released satellite
images claiming to show massive destruction by Boko Haram of two
Nigerian towns
Amnesty International and Human
Rights Watch published separate images of Baga and the nearby town of
Doron Baga, on the shores of Lake Chad, in the far north of Borno State
in northeast Nigeria.
Hundreds
of people, if not more, are feared to have been killed in the attack,
Amnesty said, that is thought to have targeted civilian vigilantes
helping the army and that reportedly included one woman being killed
while in labour.
But
Nigeria's military, which often downplays death tolls, said that 150
died and dismissed as "sensational" claims that 2,000 may have lost
their lives.
HRW said the exact death toll was unknown and quoted one local resident as saying: "No one stayed back to count the bodies.
"We were all running to get out of town ahead of Boko Haram fighters who have since taken over the area."
Amnesty's images showed aerial
shots of the two towns, which have been hit previously by fighting, on
January 2 -- the day before the attack -- and January 7, after homes and
businesses were razed.
The
group said the images suggested "devastation of catastrophic
proportions", with more than 3,700 structures -- 620 in Baga and 3,100
in Doron Baga -- damaged or completely destroyed.
HRW said 11 percent of Baga and
57 percent of Doron Baga was destroyed, most likely by arson,
attributing the greater damage in the latter to the fact that it houses a
regional military base.
The
Multinational Joint Task Force of troops from Nigeria, Niger and Chad
has been involved in counter-insurgency operations against Boko Haram.
At least 16 settlements around Baga were burnt to the ground and at least 20,000 people fled, according to local officials.
- 'Killed in labour ' -
Harrowing testimony has been emerging from survivors about the scale and brutality of the assault in Baga.
Eye-witnesses
spoken to by AFP described seeing decomposing bodies in the streets and
one man who escaped after hiding for three days said he was "stepping
on bodies" as he fled through the bush.
Amnesty
said on Thursday that survivors have told them that Boko Haram fighters
killed a woman as she was in labour, during indiscriminate fire that
also cut down small children.
"Half of the baby boy (was) out and she died like this," the unnamed witness was quoted as saying.
A man in his fifties added:
"They killed so many people. I saw maybe around 100 killed at that time
in Baga. I ran to the bush. As we were running, they were shooting and
killing."
Another woman said: "I don't know how many but there were bodies everywhere we looked."
Medical
charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said on Tuesday that its team in
the Borno State capital, Maiduguri, was providing assistance to 5,000
survivors of the attack.
The UN refugee agency has said that more than 11,300 Nigerian refugees have fled into neighbouring Chad.
Amnesty
said the eye-witnesses and images reinforced the view that the attack
was Boko Haram's "largest and most destructive" in its fight to
establish a hardline Islamic state in northeast Nigeria.
"The
deliberate killing of civilians and destruction of their property by
Boko Haram are war crimes and crimes against humanity and must be duly
investigated," it added.
Some 300 women were said to have been
rounded up and detained at a school, witnesses told Amnesty, adding that
older women, mothers and children were released after four days but
younger women kept.
The Baga
attack came before presidential and parliamentary elections in Nigeria
next month and an upsurge in violence apparently designed to undermine
the legitimacy of the vote.
Nigeria's
electoral commission said voting was "unlikely" in rebel-controlled
areas and arrangements were being made to allow hundreds of thousands of
displaced people to cast their ballots.
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