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Nigerian official says 700 people killed in recent fighting between police and Islamic sect
A Nigerian military official said Saturday that about 700 people were killed in the northern city of Maiduguri during recent fighting between police and a radical Islamist sect. The toll was previously thought to be around 300.
Col. Ben Ahanotu told The AP Saturday that mass burials have begun because bodies were decomposing in the heat. The Islamist compound destroyed this week by government troops is one of the burial sites, he said.
Maiduguri, the Borno state capital, was largely quiet Saturday. Its streets had been cleared of bodies and the blood spilled during five days of fierce fighting. Banks and markets have reopened.
But sporadic violence continued.