Boko Haram  on horseback killed two men and seized two others when they attacked farmers outside Maiduguri city in northeast Nigeria, anti-jihadist militia told AFP Saturday.

The insurgents rode into fields in Alau village on Friday, seizing four farmers, hacking two to death and kidnapping the others after inflicting machete cuts on them, the sources said.

“We recovered the bodies of the two slain farmers, bearing deep machete wounds to the head and torso,” militiaman Mohammed Bukar said.

“Farmers who escaped the assault said two others were injured and abducted by the attackers,” Bukar added.

The farmers were from a displaced camp on the outskirts of the city who grow crops in the village, said militia leader Babakura Kolo, confirming the death toll.

Around two million people have been displaced by the decade-long jihadist conflict. Many now live in camps where they rely on food and humanitarian assistance from aid agencies.

Some have turned to felling trees from the surrounding bushland to sell as firewood to make money to buy extra provision while others engage in subsistence farming in nearby fields.

Boko Haram has increasingly targeted loggers, herders and fishermen in their violent campaign, accusing them of spying and passing information to the military and the local militias fighting them.

Boko Haram’s insurgency, launched in northeast Nigeria in 2009, has killed more than 36,000 people and displaced more than two million from their homes.

The violence has since spread to Niger, Chad and Cameroon.

A regional military coalition involving troops from the four countries, is fighting to end the violence.

(AFP)