Nigeria: Soldiers feared killed in Boko Haram raid

By Olarewaju Kola

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (AA) - Several soldiers are feared dead following a raid late Wednesday by Boko Haram insurgents on a military base in Nigeria’s northeastern Yobe State.

A military source said insurgents in four-wheel drive vehicles mounted with heavy weapons fired sporadically into a military base in the remote village of Sasawa near Damaturu, the provincial capital of Yobe.

"Eight of our soldiers may have been killed," the military source told Anadolu Agency.

Colonel Kayode Ogunsanya, spokesman for the Third Division Nigerian Army base in Damaturu, confirmed the attack but did not provide details.

"There were casualties on both sides," he said, without elaborating.

The small community was seized by Boko Haram in 2014 but was later liberated by the military, which established a base there.

Yobe is one of three states in Nigeria’s northeast wracked by nearly seven years of Boko Haram insurgency. The others are Borno and Adamawa.

Around three million people have been displaced and over 20,000 killed in the violence, which has forced 1.5 million children out of school in the region, according to a recent report by the World Health Organization.