Armed militants have killed tens of thousands of people in northeastern Nigeria

Armed militants in northeastern Nigeria killed dozens of people in separate attacks targeting a construction site and a military installation earlier this week, security officials said on Saturday (Jan 31, 2026).

Gunmen killed at least 25 construction workers in an ambush in Sabon Gari town of Borno State on Thursday (January 29), a senior officer of the Borno State Police Command said. Associated Press. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters. Nigerian officials generally refuse to confirm the death toll in the attacks, publicly citing security concerns.

“This is a devastating loss, and directly marks the Boko Haram insurgents who have long resisted development projects in these areas,” the police official said.

Boko Haram, Nigeria’s homegrown jihadists, took up arms in 2009 to fight Western education and impose their radical version of Islamic law.

The insurgency now includes a branch of the Islamic State group known as the Islamic State West Africa Province, or ISWAP. It has killed nearly 35,000 civilians and displaced more than 2 million in Nigeria’s northern neighborhood, including Niger, according to the United Nations.

Abdurrahman Buni, a senior official with the Civilian Joint Task Force, a volunteer vigilante group that helps the military fight militant groups and armed gangs, confirmed that at least 25 construction workers were killed in Thursday’s attack.

Militant fighters backed by armed drones attacked an army base in a separate attack in the same town hours earlier, Buni and a police official said. A police official said the dead were nine soldiers and two members of the civilian task force, adding that around 16 injured security personnel were evacuated for medical treatment after heavy firing.

He said it was unclear whether the base attack was carried out by Boko Haram or rival ISWAP, both of which are active in the region.

Nigeria is in the grip of a complex security crisis, with an insurgency by Islamic militants in the northeast and a surge in kidnappings for ransom by gunmen in the northwest and north-central regions in recent months.

Last month, the US launched airstrikes in northern Nigeria targeting Islamic State fighters after the West African country was accused of failing to control attacks on Christians.