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Infrared mage of Doron Baga taken on January 2 shows healthy vegetation in red��Source: DigitalGlobe

Image of Doron Baga taken on January 7 shows large numbers of buildings destroyed

Witnesses said children were killed or captured and schools destroyed when Boko Haram gunmen went on a murderous four-day rampage through two Nigerian towns.

The human rights group today released satellite images which it says are �鶹APP�indisputable and shocking evidence�鶹APP� of the scale of the attacks.

Before and after images of Baga and Doron Baga show the effect of a series of Boko Haram attacks that began on January 3. Reports last week said as many as 2000 people had been killed �鶹APP� but the Nigerian government put the figure was 150.

Amnesty International says more than 3700 structures in the towns have been damaged or completely destroyed. It said other nearby towns and villages were also attacked.

Daniel Eyre, the organisation�鶹APP�s Nigeria researcher, said:���鶹APP�These detailed images show devastation of catastrophic proportions in two towns, one of which was almost wiped off the map in the space of four days.

The yellow dots show destroyed buildings in Baga and Doron Baga Source: DigitalGlobe

�鶹APP�Of all Boko Haram assaults analysed by Amnesty International, this is the largest and most destructive yet. It represents a deliberate attack on civilians whose homes, clinics and schools are now burnt-out ruins.�鶹APP�

Boko Haram �鶹APP� whose name means �鶹APP�Western education is sinful�鶹APP� �鶹APP� has often targeted schools during its five-year campaign to establish an Islamic state, which has left thousands dead. The new images come just days after reports that the group had��. Three girls said to be about 10 years old blew themselves up in Maiduguri, Borno state, and Potiskum, Yobe state. The explosions killed at least 20 people. ��

Boko Haram militants are have increasingly been using such shock tactics. In November a killed at least 47 people, most of them students. The group made worldwide headlines in April when they attacked a girls�鶹APP� school in Chibok, Borno state, and . Despite the global #BringBackOurGirls campaign, the girls are still missing.

A World at School is part of a collaboration which has been working to set up hundreds of secure schools in Nigeria�鶹APP�s most dangerous areas. In November in the programme.

The Amnesty International images were taken on January 2 and 7. In Baga, a densely populated town less than two square kilometres in size, approximately 620 structures were damaged or completely destroyed by fire.

Images of Baga taken on January 2 and 7 show��heavily burned areas of the town Source: DigitalGlobe

In Doron Baga more than 3100 structures were damaged or destroyed by fire, affecting most of the four square kilometre town. Amnesty International said: �鶹APP�Many of the wooden fishing boats along the shoreline, visible in the images taken on January 2, are no longer present in the January 7, images tallying with eye witnesses�鶹APP� testimony that desperate residents fled by boat across Lake Chad.�鶹APP�

Amnesty International said: �鶹APP�The destruction shown in these images matches the horrific testimonies that Amnesty International has gathered. Interviews with eyewitnesses as well as with local government officials and local human rights activists suggest that Boko Haram militants shot hundreds of civilians.�鶹APP�

One wtiness in Baga said gunmen shot�� indiscriminately, killing even small children and a woman who was in labour. Another said:���鶹APP�I don�鶹APP�t know how many but there were bodies everywhere.�鶹APP�

After the Baga attack, witnesses described how militants drove into the bush rounding up women, children and the elderly who had escaped. According to one woman who was detained for four days: �鶹APP�Boko Haram took around 300 women and kept us in a school in Baga. They released the older women, mothers and most of the children after four days but are still keeping the younger women.�鶹APP�