More than 60 mourners leaving a funeral in north-east Nigeria have been killed by the militant group Boko Haram, according to Nigerian officials and other sources in the area.

Ten years after the group’s founder, Mohammed Yusuf, was murdered in police custody after a crackdown on his followers, Boko Haram’s factions are continuing to wage a bloody insurgency against the Nigerian security forces and civilians, defying government attempts to destroy the group.

In the latest attack, a number of men were walking back to their village after the funeral prayers for a relative when armed men turned up on motorcycles and opened fire, said the head of the Borno Hunters Association, Bunu Bukar. The village is to the north of Maiduguri, Borno’s state capital, in the area of Nganzai.

“Our men recovered 23 dead bodies from the scene of the attack,” Bukar said. At least 11 injured people were later taken to hospital in Maiduguri.

One of the injured was Maina Abdullahi, a 29-year-old father of two. He was at home cutting the grass when he saw people running, shouting that Boko Haram insurgents had attacked and killed people from their village. He immediately tried to get his wife and children out, but as they fled they saw dead bodies. Fearing that militants were nearby, Abdullahi told his wife to go on while he fled in a different direction.

“I ran into the fight between our people and the Boko Harams who shot at everything they came across,” he said. “I was shot at the left side of my shoulder but I continued to crawl until I found help.”

Masta Ajimi was on his way to the market when he heard that his father, uncle and two of his cousins had been killed in the attack. In shock, he immediately joined the vigilantes and chased after the militants, shooting at them, but the militants with their superior weapons overpowered and killed many of the villagers.

“I was shot on my right arm and I jumped off the vehicle, rolled over and pulled a dead body over me, as a shield,” he said. “Luckily, they [Boko Haram] began to chase and shot at those running to escape and their attention became diverted. I lost a lot of blood and passed out until [when I woke up] I found myself in the hospital.”

The attack had its roots in an incident several weeks before. The chairman of the local council, Muhammad Bulama, said it was a “reprisal mission” for unsuccessfully attack by Boko Haram on another village.

Profile Who are Boko Haram? Show Hide Commonly known as Boko Haram, the Islamic State in West Africa is a terrorist organisation based in Northeast Nigeria. Formed in 2002 as Jamā'atu Ahli is-Sunnah lid-Da'wati wal-Jihād meaning “Group of the people of Sunnah for Dawa and Jihad”, the term Boko Haram is loosely translated as ‘Western education is forbidden’ or ‘Western influence is a sin’. Boko Haram started an armed rebellion against the Nigerian government in 2009. Their activities have included suicide bombings and the kidnapping of female students from a college in Chibok in 2014. A mass prison break-out in 2010 swelled their ranks. Their insurgency has also spread into neighbouring Cameroon, Chad and Niger.

In 2015 a coalition of troops from those three countries, alongside Nigerian forces, mounted a concerted effort to push back against Boko Haram. For their part, since 2015, Boko Haram has aligned itself with Islamic State. The UN estimates that at least 20,000 people have been killed in the conflict to date, but that is widely held to be far below the true number. At the peak of its strength it held territory equal to the size of Belgium Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari and his generals have repeatedly declared that they have “beaten”, “defeated”, “technically defeated”, “routed” and “broken the heart and soul” of Boko Haram. Studies suggest casualties have dropped drastically in recent years. But the suicide bombings, child abductions and displacement of the local population continues. Estimates of the group’s strength vary between 4,000 and 20,000 fighters, and the number of people who have fled Boko Haram’s territory in the Lake Chad Basin is thought to be in the order of 2.4 million.

With the help of local vigilantes, the villagers resisted the attack, killed 11 insurgents and recovered 10 AK-47 rifles, he said.

Nigeria’s president, Muhammadu Buhari, who was re-elected this year, has repeatedly vowed to “decimate” Boko Haram. However, the number of attacks have increased in recent months, leaving millions of displaced people dependent on aid that is rarely sufficient.

Less than two weeks ago, several humanitarian workers were abducted when armed men attacked their convoy near Damasak, close to the border with Niger.

One, an employee of Action Against Hunger, a major international NGO, pleaded for her release in a video shared with the prominent Nigerian journalist Ahmad Salkida.

“We are Nigerians; we are also working for Nigeria. I beg that the Nigerian government should please do something to see that we are released,” said the woman, who said her name was Grace.

She named previous kidnap victims, and mentioned Leah Sharibu, the only girl not released after the Dapchi kidnapping early last year, a Christian who refused to renounce her faith. Nigerian authorities have said they were negotiating for her release, but Grace said Sharibu had been killed.

“This has occurred before in the organisation Red Cross, where some ladies were caught – Hauwa [Mohammed Liman] and Saifura [Hussaini Ahmed Khorsa],” she said, sitting on the ground with other, male abductees against a backdrop of United Nations high commissioner for refugees-branded tarpaulins.

“They also asked to be released but because Nigeria did not do anything about it they were killed. I’m begging on behalf of all of us here that please Nigeria should not allow such [a thing] to happen to us. It also happened again with Leah [Sharibu] and Alice [Loksha] because Nigeria could not do anything about them, they were not released, they were killed.”

It is not clear, however, that the faction that abducted Sharibu is the same group that carried out these latest abductions, and several Nigeria watchers said Sharibu’s death was not confirmed.