BOKO Haram insurgents believe the ghosts of their victims are coming back to murder them in the form of killer bees and snakes.

Nigerian newspaper Vanguard is reporting that several Boko Haram insurgents were arrested after fleeing a Nigerian forest because unremitting bee stings and snake bites had become too unbearable.

The captured militants claimed they were “mystical bees” and “mysterious snakes” that had killed many of the fellow insurgents.

“We were told that the aggrieved people who had suffered from our deadly mission, including the ghosts of some of those we killed, are the ones turning into the snake and bees,” one militant told Vanguard.

“Our leaders fled, too.”

Boko Haram sympathisers have risen to notorious prominence in 2014 with the capture of 223 Nigerian schoolgirls, who were never returned to their families.

MORE: Seven shocking facts about Boko Haram

The bees and snakes are apparently feared not only for their lethal poisons but their ability to make people disappear.

“We decided to flee when almost all our comrades are leaving the Sambisa [Forest] because of constant attacks by snakes and bees, which we were told was as a result of Chibok abducted schoolgirls,” another added.

While the bees and snakes may be doing their job to clear a few out of the forests, it still hasn’t stopped the militant group’s violence in Nigeria. Just this week, a shopping mall was bombed in the country’s capital killing at least 21 people.