While we're still reeling from the horror of the Paris attack, this episode of carnage from the next continent south of there needs to be considered as well:
Nigerian lawmaker Maina Maaji Lawan said Boko Haram controlled 70% of Borno state, which is worst-affected by the insurgency.
Musa Alhaji Bukar, a senior government official in the area, said that fleeing residents told him that Baga, which had a population of about 10,000, was now "virtually non-existent".
"It has been burnt down," he told the BBC Hausa service.
Those who fled reported that they had been unable to bury the dead, and corpses littered the town's streets, he said.
Boko Haram was now in control of Baga and 16 neighbouring towns after the military retreated, Mr Bukar said.
While he raised fears that some 2,000 had been killed in the raids, other reports put the number in the hundreds.
Mr Lawan, the senator for northern Borno, called on government troops to stop "dilly-dallying" and to fight back to protect residents.
"The indiscriminate killings went on and on and on," he told BBC Focus on Africa.
Boko Haram's offensive continued on Thursday, with its fighters setting up checkpoints and killing people who were hiding in the bush, the senator said.
Fleeing residents spoke of the stench of rotting corpses on the streets and surrounding bushes, he said.
The long twilight struggle is not going well.
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