The death toll from Boko Haram attacks keeps increasing, with the latest casualties coming from attacks on four villages in Borno state, 90 kilometres from capital of Maiduguri.

Between Wednesday evening and Thursday morning, Boko Haram gunmen killed 37 people in raids on five villages around the city, military sources confirmed.

The Islamist militants arrived on motorcycles and in four-wheel drive vehicles and fired indiscriminately into houses, shooting locals as they fled.

“Reports indicated a total of 37 people were killed by the insurgents during the separate attacks,” said the source who asked to remain unnamed.

Malum Idrissa, a member of a village defence group known locally as the Civilian Joint Task Force, also confirmed that the death toll was 37 and said the villages were around 90 km (56 miles) from Maiduguri.

Details of the attack emerged a day after President Muhammadu Buhari held a summit with regional counterparts to set up a joint military force to counter Boko Haram.

The militant Islamist group has killed thousands and left around 1.5 million displaced during a six-year insurgency during which it has tried to create an Islamic caliphate in the northeast of Africa’s most populous nation and top oil exporter.

Maiduguri, the city closest to the scene of the attacks, this week became the new site of the Nigerian military command centre for operations to fight Boko Haram.

More than 80 people were killed in bomb blasts in the city last week, amid a resurgence in activity by the insurgents.