Survivors of Boko Haram attack stranded on mountain with no food

Hundreds of people who escaped a Boko Haram attack on their town
inNigeria's restive north and fled to a nearby mountain said Saturday
they were without any food.

"We are in distress. We need help," said Liman Ngosha, a farmer from
the town of Gwoza.
"We have been starving for the past four days. We are surviving now on
wild fruits," he told AFP by phone from the Mandara mountain.

Suspected Boko Haram gunmen attacked the town, some 135 kilometres (80
miles) from the state capital of Maidugur, on Wednesday.

The raid left dozens dead and sent others fleeing to the mountain near
the Cameroonian border.

Survivors said there were no soldiers to defend the town when the
gunmen attacked before dawn.

"I cannot tell the exact number of people that were killed. Before I
fled, over 100 corpses littered the streets of Gworza," Ngosha said.

The palace of the town's emir, the police headquarters and scores of
other buildings were destroyed, residents said.

"Dozens of our people have been killed by the attackers. Some were
slaughtered and many others shot with guns," resident James Mshelia
told AFP.

Residents said the whereabouts of the Gwoza emir, Mohammad Idrissa
Timta, was unknown. Timta succeeded his father, Mustapha Idrissa
Timta, who was killed by Boko Haram insurgents in May.

"There is no military presence in Gwoza now," said Halima Jatau, one
of the fleeing residents.

The attack on Gwoza came a few weeks after the insurgents took over
Damboa, another town in the volatile state that is repeatedly attacked
by the Islamist group.
Many Gworza residents who escaped the attack, including some who fled
to the mountain, met in Maiduguri on Saturday with the state governor,
Kashim Shettima, who promised to discuss their plight with President
Goodluck Jonathan.

"I share your pain and I know the difficulty that you are going
through. I want to assure you that I will relay what is happening to
the president and I will seek his support in the deployment of more
soldiers to Gwoza," he said.

On Saturday, police fired shots at a group of about 300 Gworza
residents who had gathered in central Maiduguri to protest the Boko
Haram attack, injuring a 26-year-old man.

The head of the state police, Lawan Tanko, later apologised to the
protesters saying that the policeman who fired the shot that injured
the man had been identified and would be tried and punished
accordingly.

AFP