(MENAFN- QNA) Boko Haram fighters have attacked the strategically important north-eastern city of Maiduguri, with dozens reported dead.
Fierce fighting has been reported on the outskirts of Maiduguri. A curfew remains in place and dozens of militants and soldiers are reported to have been killed.
Human rights group Amnesty International has warned that hundreds of thousands of civilians are now "at grave risk''.
Earlier on Sunday they captured the north-eastern town of Monguno, 140km (86 miles) north of Maiduguri. The army there was reported to have been overwhelmed, with houses set on fire.
At the same time the insurgents continued scorched-earth attacks on villages some 200 kilometers (125 miles) to the south in Adamawa state, slitting throats of residents, looting and burning homes and abducting dozens of trapped women and children, according to Vandu Kainu and other escaping survivors.
Adamawa state legislator Adamu Kamale appealed for troops to protect civilians in Michika, where six villages are under attack. "The attacks have continued since Friday with no presence of security operatives," he complained.
The multiple attacks come as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry visited Lagos, Nigeria's commercial capital nearly 1,000 miles (more than 1,500 kilometers) southwest of Maiduguri, to encourage peaceful elections on February 14 in Africa's most populous country.
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