At least 25 Soldiers Killed in Boko Haram Ambush in Nigeria - Reports

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - At least 25 soldiers and several civilians were killed in an ambush organized by the Boko Haram militant group in northeast Nigeria, Reuters said, citing two security sources.

“They ambushed and surrounded the vehicles of both the soldiers and the civilians and opened fire on them”, the sources said.

According to the sources, cited by Reuters, the Boko Haram militants opened fire on the soldiers while they were escorting a group of evacuees from a village in Borno state, a hotbed of the militant group's activity.

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Nigeria has been plagued by suicide attacks and kidnappings by Boko Haram, which has reportedly pledged allegiance to the Daesh terrorist group, in the northern part of the country since 2009. It began in Nigeria and expanded into the neighbouring countries. Nigeria along with Niger, Cameroon, and Chad are engaged in military operations combating the militants.

in February, 66 people were killed in several settlements of northern Nigeria's Kaduna state as a result of attacks by criminal elements, according to the state’s Governor Samuel Aruwan.

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According to figures from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), more than 20,000 people have been killed in Nigeria over the past nine years as a result of the Boko Haram insurgency.

* Daesh (ISIS/IS/ISIL), Boko Haram — are terrorist groups banned in Russia and a number of other countries.