Boko Haram kills 23 mourners after Nigerian funeral in latest attack

Boko Haram gunmen on Saturday killed 23 mourners after a funeral in Nigeria's northeast, local militia and residents said.

The attackers on three motorbikes opened fire on a group of men walking back from a funeral in Nganzai district in Borno state on Saturday morning, local militia leader Bunu Bakar Mustapha said.

"Our men recovered 23 dead bodies from the scene of the attack, which happened this morning," Mustapha told AFP.

The men were returning from a nearby village where they had just attended funeral prayers for a relative.

A district official confirmed both the incident and the death toll.

Local hunters and militia recovered the bodies after survivors returned to the village and altered them, Nganzai resident Saleh Masida said.

Nganzai district has suffered repeated attacks from Boko Haram fighters.

The extremist group killed eight people and stole livestock in two villages in the area after residents attempted to stop them from taking their animals.

Recent months have witnessed an increase in attacks by Boko Haram and its Islamic State group-supported ISWAP splinter on civilian and military targets.

Boko Haram insurgents attacked a camp for displaced people outside Maiduguri, the Borno state capital, killing two residents and looting food supplies after burning a nearby military base.

The decades-long extremist insurgency has spilled over into neighbouring Chad, Niger and Cameroon, claiming around 27,000 lives and forcing more than two million people to flee their homes.

Since 2015, troops from the four countries have been grouped into a mixed, multi-national force in a bid to help fight Islamist militants.