More than 100 people, mainly insurgents, died in fighting on Sunday in Nigeria’s Maiduguri, a local journalist counting bodies at the biggest morgue said on Monday.
Reuters’ local reporter, Bello Dukku, said by telephone that, the dead also included at least 15 soldiers and a few civilians.
Dukku said he had had to leave the morgue after counting 100 bodies, because of the overwhelming stench. He said another 50 people had been injured in the fighting.
There has been no official death toll in the street battles in Maiduguri Sunday.
Meanwhile, Nigerian troops have launched air and land campaign to regain Monguno, 135 kilometres to Maiduguri, the capital from Boko Haram.
The insurgents had launched several simultaneous attacks early on Sunday. One hit the outskirts and airport of the main northeastern city of Maiduguri, the birthplace of Boko Haram’s five-year-old insurgency, which it covets as the potential capital of an Islamic state.
They then hit two other towns, Konduga and Monguno, which lies on the shores of Lake Chad.
A defence spokesman said on Sunday evening that air strikes had been carried out to take back the town after ground troops were forced to retreat.
“The operation resumed on Monguno this morning through air bombardment to dislodge the insurgents,” a security source said on Monday.
At least 15 soldiers were killed along with more than over 25 civilians in the town on Monday, a source said.
Soldiers in Monguno said on Sunday they had fled because of the insurgents’ superior fire power.
Monguno lies near the larger town of Baga, where a military base was taken over by Boko Haram in early January in an attack that left scores of civilians dead.