Boko Haram burn children to death in attack on village in north-eastern Nigeria

A survivor said he watched the terrorists set fire to the village of Dalori and shoot people who attempted to flee

Two men next to a burnt out car in Maiduguri after a bomb attack by Boko Haram (Getty Images)

Boko Haram extremists have burned a number of children to death in a hours-long attack that has left at least 65 people dead.

According to an eyewitness survivor - who hid in a tree to escape the attack - the terrorists set fire to the village of Dalori and shot people attempting to flee in the country’s north-east on Saturday evening.

Alamin Bakura said the shootings and burnings continued for four hours and he had lost several of his own family members in the attack.

The violence then continued as three female suicide bombers followed the survivors who managed to flee to the neighbouring village of Gamori before blowing themselves up - killing many more people.

Soldiers said that dozens of charred corpses and bodies with bullet wounds littered the streets in the village just three miles from Maiduguri - the birthplace of Boko Haram and the scene of a bomb attack by the group which killed at least 80 people in December.

According to a local security guard, Abba Shehu, the total death toll is unknown because bodies are still being recovered from the streets and the surrounding bush where insurgents hunted down fleeing villagers.

Abubakar Shekau, current leader of Boko Haram, declared the group's allegiance to Isis in March 2015 (YouTube, AFP)

Boko Haram has increasingly been attacking towns and villagers - viewing them as “soft targets” as Nigerian forces push them out of their city strongholds.

Former residents of Baga on the border with Chad - which was the scene of a massacre last year in which up 2,000 people were killed - are reportedly too frightened to return home as Boko Haram fighters retreated to the heavily guarded islands around Lake Chad.

Today only 700 people remain out of a previous population of 200,000.

The terror group - which declared an “Islamic caliphate” in the territory it previously controlled in northern Nigeria - pledged allegiance to Isis in an audio message which appeared to be recorded by the group’s leader Abubakar Shjeka.

Since 2009, the Boko Haram uprising has killed around 20,000 people and driven 2.5m from their homes.

Additional reporting by the Associated Press