Women who have fled violence in Nigeria queue for food at a refugee welcoming center in Ngouboua, Chad, January 19, 2015. (Emmanuel Braun/Reuters)

As thousands of Nigerians and Cameroonians fled for their lives from rampaging Boko Haram fighters, the leader of the violent Islamist group reportedly bragged in a video released Tuesday about the slaughter in the town of Baga and promised that there would be more to come.


“We killed the people of Baga,” Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau boasted in the video first reported by AFP. “We indeed killed them, as our Lord instructed us in His Book….We will not stop. This is not much. You’ll see.” The video could not be independently authenticated.


Infrared satellite images of the village of Doron Baga in northeastern Nigeria. The top image shows the village on Jan. 2, before it was allegedly attacked by members of the Islamic extremist group Boko Haram. The bottom image, taken on Jan. 7, 2015, shows Doron Baga after the alleged attack. (AP Photo/DigitalGlobe via Amnesty International, Micah Farfour)

There’s still no reliable count of the number killed around Jan. 3 in the Baga area of northeastern Nigeria, with estimates ranging from hundreds to 2,000. Amnesty International described it as “devastation of cataatrophic proportions in two towns, one of which was almost wiped off the map in the space of four days.”
Baga, on the shores of Lake Chad, was supposed to have served as a headquarters for a regional African force to fight Boko Haram, an effort which has yet to produce significant joint activity, in part because of mistrust among the countries involved in the effort.


 
People cross Lake Chad in canoes in Ngouboua, Chad, January 19, 2015. (Emmanuel Braun/Reuters)
But Nigerians and people in the neighboring border areas of Cameroon didn’t need any videos to take Boko Haram’s threats seriously. In the wake of the Baga attack, Boko Haram attacked the village of Mabass in the far north region of Cameroon early Sunday, according to the AP, kidnapping up to 60 people.
The AP reported that 10,000 “panic stricken” Cameroonians were in flight, seeking refuge from the Boko Haram onslaught.

The AP reported:

The insurgents are looting food and livestock, and a humanitarian and food crisis looms, the minister of territorial administration and decentralization Rene Emmanuel Sadi said Tuesday.
Students and teachers are among those who have fled their homes. More than 10 schools were deserted after attacks Sunday, adding to the about 140 schools that have shut their doors because of the insurgency bleeding over into Cameroon, said Cameroon’s minister of education Monouna Fotso.

Source- Washington Post