It has become a pattern every year for insurgents to step up attacks near Eid to sabotage the celebrations

“They arrived around 5:30pm and went on for more than four hours before the soldiers came to fight them,” said Bashir Manzo, a resident of Dapchi.

This attack is characteristic of the Boko Haram group, with which ISWAP split off in 2016, which regularly uses suicide bombers to target civilians.

Konduga is located in the Sambisa forest, a stronghold of Boko Haram from which suicide bombers have often launched their attacks in the past.

Earlier Monday, fighters from Boko Haram also attacked the village of Kautikeri in southern Borno State, beheading a resident and kidnapping a herder of 150 cattle, Ayuba Alamson, a Chibok community leader, told AFP.

“It has become a pattern every year for insurgents to step up attacks near Eid to sabotage the celebrations,” said the head of the anti-Jihadist militia in Borno, Babakura Kolo, saying this year “will be no different.