Star Metro - 'Burned inside their houses': Nigerians recount horror of massacre

When no one attended, they went on a rampage, killing people and torching houses, he said.

Salihu is the traditional chief of Woro, a small, Muslim-majority village in west-central Nigeria where alleged jihadist gunmen perpetrated a massacre late Tuesday.

Details are still emerging from the attack in Kwara State, but it is one of the country's deadliest in recent months. According to the Red Cross, the death toll stands at 162 people, and the search for bodies is ongoing.

Badly shaken, Salihu recounted the night of terror he survived as the attackers killed two of his sons and kidnapped his wife and three daughters.

Around 5:00 pm, the gunmen "just came in and started shooting", the 53-year-old chief told AFP Thursday, clutching his Muslim prayer beads in his hand.

"All those shops that are within the road, they burnt them... Some people have been burned inside their houses," he said.

"They killed two of (my sons) standing at the front of my house. They took away my second wife with some three (daughters). They are with them presently in the bush."

Salihu survived by hiding in a house, then fled to the neighbouring town of Kaiama, where he has a home, after the attackers left.

The attack lasted until 3:00 am, he said.

"When the day breaks, the corpses we see, it's too much," he said.

- 'Don't want their ideology' -

Woro, a village of several thousand people, sits near a forest region known as a hideout for jihadist fighters and armed gangs, groups that have fuelled nearly two decades of violence in Africa's most populous country.

It is a Muslim community, but its residents want nothing to do with radicalised jihadist groups, said Salihu.

"People don't want to follow their ideology," he said.

When a radical group sent a letter saying they planned to come to Woro to preach, no one attended, he said.

Salihu alerted the local security services.

"I think that is what brought the anger to come and just kill people like that in the community," he said.

The governor of Kwara gave the death toll from the attack as 75.

Sa'idu Baba Ahmed, a member of the local assembly, said 78 bodies had been buried Wednesday afternoon.

"More dead bodies are being recovered and brought from the bush," he said.

The attackers kidnapped another 38 people, mostly women and children, he said.

- 'Beastly attack' -

Nigerian President Bola Tinubu condemned the "beastly attack", deploying an army battalion to the troubled region and blaming Islamist movement Boko Haram -- though the name is often used generically for jihadist groups in Nigeria.

Kwara is racked by violence by armed "bandit" gangs and jihadist groups that have been extending their range from northwestern Nigeria farther south.

In October, the Al-Qaeda-linked Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM) claimed its first attack on Nigerian soil in the state, near Woro.

Nigeria's northeast is meanwhile the scene of long-running violence by Boko Haram and a rival offshoot, Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP).

Nigeria is broadly split between a Christian-majority south and Muslim-majority north.

US President Donald Trump has alleged there is a "genocide" of Christians in Nigeria -- a claim rejected by the Nigerian government and many independent experts, who say the country's security crises claim the lives of both Christians and Muslims, often without distinction.

Washington has alternately pressured and aided the Nigerian government in its fight against jihadist violence.

On Christmas Day, the United States launched strikes targeting jihadist militants in northwestern Nigeria, and Washington has deployed a small military team to the country, according to the head of the US Africa Command.

A.Desjardins--SMC