B
Bodies
remain littered on the streets of a northern Nigerian town two days
after it was seized by militant Islamists, a lawmaker has told the BBC.
Boko Haram fighters were patrolling the streets of Bama, preventing people from burying the dead, Ahmed Zanna said.
On Wednesday, the state government denied the town had fallen.
Officials
said about 26,000 people had been displaced by fighting in Bama, a key
town in the battle for control of Nigeria’s north-eastern Borno state.
Earlier
this week, the Nigeria Security Network (NSN) think-tank said the group
had made “lightning territorial gains” in recent months, raising fears
that the country could disintegrate like Syria and Iraq, where the
Islamic State (IS) rebel group has declared a caliphate.
Boko Haram has also said it has set up a caliphate in the areas it controls – it is not clear if the two groups are allied.
Mr. Zanna,
a senator in Borno, said the humanitarian situation in Bama was
“terrible” and there had been a “lot of killings” in the town.
“So many
bodies litter the streets, and people are not allowed to even go and
bury the dead ones. So the situation is getting worse and worse,” Mr
Zanna told the BBC’s Newsday programme after speaking to a resident who
fled the town.
Boko Haram
has captured a string of towns in northern-eastern Nigeria in recent
months, fuelling concern that it could advance towards the main city,
Maiduguri.
Mr Zanna
said it would be “catastrophic” if Boko Haram launched an assault on
Maiduguri, which has a population of more than two million.
“I’m begging the government to send more troops and armoury to Maiduguri,” he said.
“Boko Haram do come overwhelmingly because they recruited en masse in the villages [in Borno state],” he added.
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