Nigerian Official Says 700 Dead in Recent Violence

[Heidi]

Source: Wall Street Journal

AUGUST 1, 2009, 10:05 P.M. ET

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria -- A Nigerian military official said Saturday that about 700 people were killed in the northern city of Maiduguri during recent fighting between police and a radical Islamist sect. The toll was previously thought to be around 300.

Col. Ben Ahanotu said Saturday that mass burials have begun because bodies were decomposing in the heat. The Islamist compound destroyed this week by government troops is one of the burial sites, he said.

"They've got almost 700 bodies," Mr. Ahanotu, who is in charge of security in Maiduguri, said of officials gathering bodies.

"Right there, they had to do a mass burial there because there are a lot of bodies inside," he said, pointing to what used to be the Boko Haram sect leader's compound. It is now smoldering rubble with digging equipment around it.


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