A new video from Boko Haram extremists has emerged, showing gunmen killing civilians lying face down in a dormitory, and a leader saying they are being killed because they were ‘infidels’ or non-believers, according to the Associated Press.
There were so many corpses sighted in the video released to journalists late Saturday, with the gunmen finding it hard to reach bodies still jerking with life. Most appear to be adult men, laying credence to reports by villagers that the extremists are rounding up elderly people and killing them in two schools in Gwoza, Borno State. The leader however said the killing happened in Bama, 40 miles north of Gwoza.
“We have made sure the floor of this hall is turned red with blood, and this is how it is going to be in all future attacks and arrests of infidels,” the group leader said in the video.
“From now, killing, slaughtering, destruction and bombing will be our religious duty anywhere we invade.”
The militants had in the past told residents of villages and towns captured that they would kill only enemies and wanted people to live peacefully in the ‘Islamic Caliphate.’
In a message that will convince Muslims that have distanced the activities of the sect from the tenets of Islam, the leader in the video noted that the prophet Mohammed advised prisoners should be held, not killed, but he said: “we felt this is not the right time for us to keep prisoners; that is why we will continue to see that the grounds are crimsoned with the flowing blood of prisoners.”
According to him, some of those killed may call themselves Muslims, but they are considered infidels by Boko Haram.
The insurgency which started in 2009 has led to the death of thousands of people and has displaced about 1.6 million.
