MAIDUGURI, Nigeria — When men wearing military fatigues and carrying weapons showed up in pickups, villagers thought Nigerian soldiers had finally come to protect them from Boko Haram.
But it was a disguise. The gunmen rounded up everyone in the village center and started shooting.
In a wave of attacks this week, Boko Haram militants slaughtered hundreds of people in four villagesa, witnesses said Thursday, describing one Monday by the Islamic extremist group that drew international attention for kidnapping more than 300 schoolgirls.
A community leader who witnessed the killings Monday said residents had pleaded for the military to send soldiers to protect the area after they heard that militants were about to attack.
The militants arrived in pickups commonly used by the military and told the civilians they were soldiers and that they had come “to protect you all,” the same tactic used by the group when they kidnapped the girls from a school in Chibok on April 15.
“We all thought they were the soldiers whom we earlier reported to that the insurgents might attack us,” said a community leader, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared for his life.
After the militants forced everyone into the village centers, “they began to shout ‘Allahu akbar, Allahu akbar,’ then they started to fire at the people continuously for a very long time until all who had gathered were dead,” he said.
Allahu akbar means God is great.
The killings took place in the villages of Danjara, Agapalwa and Antagara. A fourth incident Wednesday in Bargari killed 45.
The slaughter was confirmed by Mohammed Ali Ndume, a senator representing Borno, and by a top security official in Maiduguri, who insisted on anonymity because he isn’t allowed to speak to the media.
