The militants over the weekend captured the Baga Multi-national Joint Task Force Base near Lake Chad.

The Islamist sect Boko Haram on January 3, 2015 seized the Multi-national Joint Task Force military base in Baga town, Borno State near Nigeria’s border with Chad that hosted troops from Nigeria, Niger and Chad.

The force was set up in 1998 to fight trans-border crime in the Lake Chad region and the force more recently took on Boko Haram. Baga, scene of a Nigerian army massacre in 2013, was the last town in the Borno North area under the Nigerian government control, BBC reported. Local residents said they were woken up by heavy gunshots and could not identify where the shots were coming from, BBC reported. 

The assailants came through the north, west and southern part of the town because the eastern part is only water, they reportedly said, "The soldiers were trying to repel the attack but that wasn't going to happen because a lot of the soldiers were without their guns and some were running into the town. When you see soldiers running away into the town - what are you to do, other than to just run away as well?"  BBC quoted the declaration of Maina Maaji Lawan, senator for Borno North.

He said residents ran helter skelter some into the forest and others to the desert.  Maina Maaji Lawan  reportedly expressed the people’s frustration as he reportedly told the BBC that, "There is definitely something wrong that makes our military abandon their posts each time there is an attack from Boko Haram.”

Baga residents who fled by boat to Chad said many people had been killed and the town set on fire. Communications with the town were reportedly cut off and exact information about casualty numbers could not be confirmed. In April 2013, at least 37 people were killed and 2,275 homes destroyed in Baga  by government troops hunting Boko Haram fighters who had attacked a patrol.