Satellite images suggest massive destruction by Boko Haram in Nigeria

Johannesburg (dpa) - Recent attacks by the radical Islamist group Boko Haram in Nigeria may have killed many more people than the government says, the rights group Amnesty International said Thursday.

The government says about 150 people were killed in attacks that started in Baga in the north-east on January 3, downplaying reports that put the death toll at 2,000.

Satellite images published by Amnesty show that the neighbouring towns of Baga or Doron Baga were largely destroyed, with more than 3,700 structures damaged or burned down.

"These detailed images show devastation of catastrophic proportions in two towns," with Doron Baga almost completely wiped off the map, said Daniel Eyre, a Nigeria researcher with Amnesty.
Interviews with witnesses, officials and human rights activists suggest that Boko Haram shot hundreds of civilians.

"There were bodies everywhere we looked," one woman told the rights group. Another witness said the insurgents killed even small children and a woman who was in labour.

Eyre said the images suggested a "much higher" death toll than that given by the Nigerian government.

The attacks sent thousands of people fleeing to neighbouring countries.

Boko Haram, which wants to establish an Islamist state, killed thousands of people in northern Nigeria last year alone.