2,000 dead: Massacre deadliest in Nigerian history

Natalie DiBlasio | USA TODAY

As many as 2,000 people have been killed in Islamist extremist group Boko Haram's deadliest massacre yet in Nigeria, Amnesty International reported.

District head Baba Abba Hassan said most victims were children, women and elderly people who could not run fast enough when insurgents drove into the town of Baga, firing rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles on town residents.

"The human carnage perpetrated by Boko Haram terrorists in Baga was enormous," said Muhammad Abba Gava, a spokesman for poorly armed civilians in a defense group that fights Boko Haram.

Hundreds of bodies were strewn in the bush in Nigeria from the attack.

"If reports that the town was largely razed to the ground and that hundreds or even as many as 2,000 civilians were killed are true, this marks a disturbing and bloody escalation of Boko Haram's ongoing onslaught against the civilian population," said Daniel Eyre, Nigeria researcher for Amnesty International.

The U.S. State Department condemned the recent escalation of attacks, saying in a statement that Boko Haram "shows no regard for human life" and "all those responsible for these recurring terrorist attacks must be held accountable."

"Even in the face of these horrifying attacks, terrorist organizations like Boko Haram must not distract Nigeria from carrying out credible and peaceful elections that reflect the will of the Nigerian people," the statement reads.

Mike Omeri, the government spokesman on the insurgency, said fighting continued into Friday for Baga, a town on the border with Chad where insurgents seized a key military base on Jan. 3 and attacked again on Wednesday.

"Security forces have responded rapidly and have deployed significant military assets and conducted airstrikes against militant targets," Omeri said in a statement.

The previous bloodiest day in the uprising involved militants gunning down unarmed detainees freed in a March 14 attack on Giwa military barracks in Maiduguri city. Amnesty said then that satellite imagery indicated more than 600 people were killed that day.

More than 1 million people have been displaced inside Nigeria and hundreds of thousands have fled across its borders into Chad, Cameroon and Nigeria.

Contributing: The Associated Press