A convoy attack killed at least 50 militants and left seven Nigerian soldiers missing

A spokesman for the government said that at least 50 Boko Haram fighters were killed and seven members of Nigeria’s infrastructure security force were missing on Tuesday after an insurgent attack on a convoy watching over the country’s power grid sites.

Boko Haram has been fighting an insurgency for 15 years, mostly in the northeast. The military and fighting within the group have made it weaker, but it is still a threat because it strikes people and government targets with deadly violence.

A spokesman for the Nigerian Civil Defense Corp, a government body set up to protect infrastructure, named Babawale Afolabi said that patrolling security officers were attacked by about 200 Boko Haram attackers.

Afolabi said that more than 50 rebels were killed in the fighting, but seven agents are still missing. He also said that searches are being done in the bush to find them. He said that “a few others” in the protection team were hurt.

Nigerian authorities say that Boko Haram has cells in the mostly Muslim Niger state, where they have attacked both military and civilian targets in the past. However, Boko Haram mostly works in the northeast.

A military spokesman said that five troops were killed by people they thought were rebels last Saturday in a separate attack in the northeast of Borno state.