Dozens Killed As Militants Burn Children In Nigeria

A survivor recalled hearing the screams of children as they burned to death.

Dozens of people were killed in northeastern Nigeria on Saturday when armed Islamic extremists torched a village and shot those trying to flee.

In an attack that lasted several hours, militants with the Boko Haram extremist group firebombed houses and huts in the village of Dalori, near the city of Maiduguri.

Agence France-Presse reported at least 50 people were killed in the attack, while a Reuters journalist counted at least 65 bodies at a local morgue.

Survivor Alamin Bakura told the Associated Press he hid in a tree to escape the carnage, listening to the screams of children and others as they burned to death.

Boko Haram's deadly insurgency killed more than 6,600 people in Nigeria last year, making it the world's deadliest terror group, according to a Global Terrorism Index report.

Tens of thousands of people have also been displaced by the group, which seeks independence from the authorities in the capital, Abuja, and the establishment of an Islamic state under strict Sharia law.

Boko Haram was also behind the abduction of some 300 Nigerian schoolgirls in Chibook in 2014.

A coalition of African nations has been established to combat the group, whose militants continue to wage attacks and bombings on villages and places of worship.

CORRECTION

The attack occurred on Saturday night. An earlier version of this story incorrectly reported it occurred on Sunday.

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