Boko Haram militants killed dozens of people in a nighttime assault on a village in northeastern Nigeria that is home to residents who had recently returned from a camp for internally displaced persons, authorities said.

Borno state Governor Babagana Zulum, who visited the attacked community late Saturday evening, confirmed to reporters that over 60 died in the attack.

“We have to take note that the numerical strength of the Nigerian army is not enough to contain this situation,” Zulum said.

He added that authorities have started training “forest guards,” which he said were trained in Maiduguri and which he hopes to deploy soon.

Local officials said over a dozen houses were burnt and more than 100 people were forced to flee.

Boko Haram, Nigeria’s homegrown jihadis, took up arms in 2009 to fight Western education and impose their radical version of Islamic law.

The conflict has spilled into Nigeria’s northern neighbors, including Niger, and resulted in the death of around 35,000 civilians and the displacement of more than 2 million others, according to the United Nations.

Boko Haram split into two factions after the death of the group’s longtime leader, Abubakar Shekau, in 2021.

One faction is backed by the Islamic State group and is known as the Islamic State West Africa Province, or ISWAP. It has become notorious for targeting military positions.

The other faction, Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati wal-Jihad, or JAS, has increasingly resorted to attacking civilians and perceived collaborators and thrives on robberies and abductions for ransom.

The Bama local government area was the target of several Boko Haram attacks a decade ago, forcing many residents to flee.

Following military operations in the area in recent years, authorities had resettled displaced people in several communities, most recently the village of Darul Jamal in July.