How Boko Haram Destroyed Gamburo(Pictures)

The BBC's John Simpson visited Gamburo Ngala, a town in Bornu State of Nigeria, to access the level of destruction caused by Boko Haram. Accoding to the reporter,,,

Boko Haram is one of the most effective and successful guerrilla groups anywhere.

What shocked me was that Boko Haram could launch a major attack on a smallish town like Gamburo, close to the border with Cameroon, and kill 375 people - and yet this would scarcely be reported in the rest of Nigeria, let alone the outside world.

The situation in Gamburo itself was quite extraordinary. Over the years I have seen dozens of towns which have been attacked by guerrillas, from Bosnia to Angola and from Iraq to Peru. But I have never seen damage on this scale.

 Boko Haram attacked it with a fury that is fortunately rare. It was as though they wanted to wipe it off the face of the earth. They arrived in extraordinary force - there were 400 of them, according to one man who watched the attack from hiding - and set about killing people and destroying cars and buildings coldly and methodically.

The soldiers in the town had previously been ordered somewhere else, and the police, who were its sole defenders, ran away. Only the members of the local home guard, armed with machetes and bows and arrows, stayed and fought.

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