Four Internally Displaced Persons, IDPs, in Dalori-1 Camp of Maiduguri, Borno State, were reportedly beheaded by the Boko Haram sect on Saturday.
The four victims, whose bodies were found some few kilometres from the Dalori camp along the Maiduguri-Bama road, were on Sunday buried by their fellow displaced persons.
Two other IDPs who were among a 12-man hunting troop were yet to be accounted for on Sunday evening.
Premium Times reports that the IDPs, who were also volunteer members of the local vigilante, Civilian-JTF, often go to the bush to hunt for games which they either cook to beef up their protein needs or sell to earn some cash.
“Six of the IDP hunters managed to run back late afternoon of Saturday to inform us at the camp that they were attacked by Boko Haram fighters”, said an IDP from Bama who identified himself as Alai Goni.
“When we waited for the six others to return and they did not, we decided to go in search for them. About 6km away from the camp, we came to a riverbank and we saw a man watering his horse.
“The man simply pointed to us where the corpses of the four slain men were dumped. We became suspicious of him and we had to arrest him and bring him to the security personnel at the gate of Dalori-1 camp.
“Unfortunately, we could not immediately find the decapitated heads of three of them; we only found three bodies without their heads, while the fourth one whose head was not separated from his body, had some kind of sharp word forcefully driven into his forehead.”
The source said the heads of the four beheaded persons were later found early Sunday morning, after which they were prepared for burial at about 9 a.m.
“Unfortunately, we have not heard from the other two missing IDPs and we are not sure if they are still alive or dead”, he said.
The leader of the Civilian-JTF, Abba Kalli, who also confirmed the incident, blamed the victims for embarking on such “dangerous expedition”, after they had been severally warned that it was dangerous for them to wander away from the camp.
“Four of them were beheaded; two were captured and taken away, while the rest six managed to escape. We have severally warned them going even 2km kilometres away from their camps in that axis is very dangerous because the Boko Haram insurgents were there in the bush.
“But they refused to heed to warning, by insisting on going to hunt in the bush. They have been buried according to the Islamic rite this morning”.
