Colonel Mustapha Ankas, a Nigerian military spokesman, told Reutersthat Boko Haram militants attacked the community of Dalori, about three miles east of Maiduguri in the state of Borno.

The attack spotlighted the Islamist insurgency's brutal punishment of those fleeing its violence.

According to reports, the Islamic extremists entered the town of Dalori in cars and motorcycles opening fire on fleeing residents, torching houses and detonating bombs using suicide bombers, leaving the charred remains of people and livestock behind.

The Boko Haram terrorists only retreated when Army reinforcements arrived with heavier weapons, they said. Several of them set fire to mud-brick homes with families trapped inside. "I lost 11 people, and 5 of our children are nowhere to be found", she said.

An eyewitness Bulama Malum said he saw more than 20 bodies burnt beyond recognition and that 15 villagers were missing. He told the Associated Press by phone, weeping, that he had seen Boko Haram forces firebombing huts, and had heard the children inside screaming as they were burned alive.

Suicide bombers also carried out deadly attacks on Sunday in the Lake Chad region, an area frequently targeted by Boko Haram, a local security official said. "At least 50 people were also killed, many others injured", he said.

Nigerian army troops arrived at the scene and clashed with the militants, but a soldier who spoke on condition of anonymity said the army was defeated because the terrorists were better armed. The first attack took place in the village of Guie, where one person was killed and other 32 resulted injured; and the second attack took place in the village of Miterine, where two persons were killed and 24 injured. Maiduguri is the military headquarters of the fight to combat and defeat Boko Haram.

The Borno State Commissioner for health, Haruna Mshelia, has put the death of weekend Boko Haram attack in Maiduguri at 85.

Mallam Hassan, another villager, gave a similar account.

Boko Haram has marauded across northern Nigeria for years, killing thousands of civilians, burning entire villages and kidnapping hundreds of women and girls - crimes that came long before the group declared allegiance to the Islamic State last year.