The killers pretended to be labourers – 24-yr-old survivor of Borno massacre

A survivor of the Borno massacre by Boko Haram terrorists has narrated his experience and how he escaped.

For several days, the killers lived peaceably among their future victims, sharing their dormitories and eating their food and pretending to be labourers that came for seasonal work.

Then, on Saturday afternoon, they took out their guns, rounded up the people like cattle and slaughtered them one by one.

This was the nightmare recounted by survivors of a massacre that unfolded in the rice fields of northeastern Nigeria on Saturday.

The bloodbath set a new standard of brutality in Boko Haram’s 11-year-old jihadist insurgency.

Seventy-six people died, according to the authorities. Many were impoverished farmworkers who were tied up before their throats were slit.

A traumatised survivor aged 24, who can be called Abdul, said the murderers posed as labourers who had come to the fields in Koshobe, Borno State, to do seasonal work.

“I ran errands for them, getting them food and washing their plates,” said Abdul, who came with hundreds of others from Kebbi, a poor region 1,000 kilometres (600 miles) away.

Around 40 jihadists were involved in the massacre, according to survivors.