Militants reportedly killed 24 people last weekend in attacks in northern Nigeria.

Suspected Boko Haram militants killed 24 people in two separate attacks in northern Nigeria over the weekend, eyewitnesses said on Saturday, November 30, 2013. Seven fishermen were ambushed and killed in the first attack in Baga, a fishing community near Lake Chad in Borno State, while 17 people died in another raid on Thursday, November 28, 2013.

Eyewitnesses said gunmen in pick-up trucks torched more than 100 shops and vehicles in the Sabon Gari area of the Damboa district, 90 kilometres from the Borno State capital, Maiduguri. There was however no immediate confirmation of either attack from the military or local authorities.

Human Rights Watch on Friday, November 29, 2013, said Boko Haram fighters were carrying out reprisals on civilians in retaliation for intelligence on supposed militant activities passed to the military by civilian vigilante groups. It urged the militants to stop targeting civilians and vigilantes to stop using minors in counter-intelligence and security operations.

Meanwhile, the Nigerian Army has promised that most of the strongholds of the Boko Haram sect will be cleared before Christmas to ensure peaceful celebration, Thisday newspaper reported yesterday, December 1, 2013. Speaking last weekend in Maiduguri, the spokesman of the Seventh Division of the Nigerian Army, Colonel Muhammad Dole, revealed that the military was presently involved in battles with the terrorist group. He vowed that the militants will soon be smoked out of their strongholds.