Thousands of residents of a Nigerian town have abandoned it after they received a scary letter from Boko Haram gunmen that the town faces imminent attack.

The residents of Gubio town in Borno State, north east of the country are now seeking refuge in Maiduguri, already overcrowded with internally displaced people.

File Photo: some internally displaced people in Adamawa state, running away from Boko Haram

The fleeing residents, who arrived Maiduguri in lorries, vans and trucks were seen moving towards the direction of the Shehu of Borno’s palace as well as towards the city centre, Nigerian newspaper, Leadership reported today.

One of the displaced residents, Fannami Abuwar, said “ We have been threatened with letter by the Boko Haram insurgents, saying that they would attack us soon and we all have to flee for our lives having heard of what happened to communities like Damasak and Malumfatori where similar threat were made and carried out”.

A spokesman for the Vigilante Group in Borno State, Muhammed Gava, confirmed the development to Leadership.

He said, “We were all disturbed by the development because Gubio, though not too far away from Maiduguri, has been very peaceful and calm all this while”.

Officials of the state government and aid workers are yet to respond to the situation even as residents of Maiduguri had begun to worry over the increasing influx of displaced persons in to the state capital that is already choked up by over 100, 000 other IDPs from about 15 local government areas of the state.

Gubio, which is about 96 kilometres away from Maiduguri, is an agrarian town and headquarters of local government of the same name