7 killed in Boko Haram attack on displaced camp

At least seven people were killed when Boko Haram militants attacked a camp for people displaced by the conflict in northeast Nigeria, militia members and locals said Saturday.

The attack on Friday evening in Ngala, near the border with Cameroon, came as two people were killed in an explosion outside another camp in the Borno state capital, Maiduguri.

In Ngala, a civilian militia member, Umar Kachalla, said militants in two pick-up trucks fired a rocket-propelled grenade at the camp, which houses some 80,000 people.

"They (Boko Haram) fired an RPG into the camp from behind the fire fence, killing seven people and injuring several others," he told AFP from the neighboring town of Gamboru.

The attack, which happened at about 8:00 pm (1900 GMT), was followed by sustained gunfire as the militants drove away into the darkness, he added.

Ngala resident Abubakar Yusuf, who corroborated Kachalla's account, said: "The casualties were relatively minimal because most people had retired for the night."

The camp in Ngala was set up in January last year after the return of thousands of Nigerian refugees from Cameroon, where they had fled the fighting.

Nigeria's military and government maintains the Daesh affiliate is a spent force but continued attacks underline the lingering threat, particularly to civilians.

Eight farmers were killed in a series of raids on farming communities on Wednesday and Thursday. Four others were shot dead on Tuesday.

Many of the victims had returned home to try to grow crops to alleviate acute food shortages that have left hundreds of thousands of people on the brink of starvation.

Amnesty International said a spurt in Boko Haram attacks has left nearly 400 people dead since April in Nigeria and Cameroon -- double the figure of the previous five months.

In Maiduguri on Friday, two people were killed in an explosion outside the Muna Garage camp for internally displaced people (IDPs).

Babakura Kolo, from the civilian militia assisting the military with security, said two women were asked to get out of a taxi laden with bags of charcoal at a checkpoint.

SS