Suspected Boko Haram attack kills at least 150 in Nigeria

More than 150 people, including 38 police, died in a suspected Boko Haram raid on the northeastern Nigerian city of Damaturu this week, police officers as well as a rescue official and a health worker told Agence France-Presse on Wednesday.

With a name that loosely translates to “Western education in forbidden,” the armed group Boko Haram is seeking to carve out a separate state in Nigeria’s north to be governed in accordance to its own interpretation of Islamic Shariah law.

The group has been responsible for a wave of violence in the country, most of it directed against civilians. Members of Boko Haram have also frequently targeted educational establishments, abducting and killing hundreds of students.

A senior rescue official and a medical source at the city's Sani Abacha Specialist Hospital said 115 bodies were brought to the morgue after Monday's attack.

All 115 were in civilian clothing, but it was not certain whether they were all non-combatants, the sources said. The dead reportedly included two medical doctors, a staff member of the federal polytechnic in the Yobe state capital and his two children.

Six soldiers were also killed, the sources said. Emmanuel Ojukwu, spokesman for Nigeria's federal police, said, "Out of the police, we have 38 deaths."

The heavy loss of life came after an increase in mass casualty attacks blamed on the insurgents.

Also on Monday, two female suicide bombers blew themselves up at a market in the Borno state capital, Maidiguri — less than a week after two other women killed more than 45 at the same location.

Last Friday two suicide bombers and gunmen killed at least 120 worshippers at the central mosque in the northern city of Kano, which has been repeatedly hit by Boko Haram attacks in the past.

Neither the military nor the state government in Yobe said they were in a position to comment on the casualty figures when contacted by AFP.

But civilian vigilantes operating in Damaturu claimed on Monday that more than 40 Boko Haram gunmen had been killed in the fighting.

The medical source said it was "likely" that most of the 115 were insurgents.

He added: "Rescue teams are still looking in the bush around the city for more bodies. It's believed that people might have died from gunshot wounds while trying to flee."

The senior rescue official said 78 people were injured. Of those 53 were treated and discharged.

Al Jazeera and Agence-France Presse