Insurgents from Islamist militant group Boko Haram kidnapped at least 185 women and children, and killed 32 people in a raid in northeastern Nigeria this week.
"They gathered the women and children and took them away in trucks after burning most of the village with petrol bombs," a local government official said to CNN on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.
During the attack, Boko Haram militants shot heavy machine guns in the village before dousing houses in gasoline and setting them on fire.
"They destroyed almost half the village and took away 185 women, girls and boys," Gumsuri resident Umar Ari, who earlier trekked for four days to Maiduguri, said to CNN of the attack.
Thousands of residents from Gumsuri fled to Maiduguri to flee Boko Haram attacks. Some of the escaped residents reportedly lost all of their belongings besides the clothes on their backs.
News of the Boko Haram attack took a few days to break because of a lack of communication - the group disabled telecommunications towers in the region during previous attacks, CNN reported.
Boko Haram terrorizing Nigeria is nothing new, as the group has regularly attacked police, schools, churches and civilians, and has bombed government buildings in the area since 2009.
U.S. Congressional Research Service report calls Boko Haram one of the world's deadliest terrorist organizations.
