Suspected Islamist militants dressed as soldiers rounded up and killed at least 42 villagers in Nigeria’s northeast, the centre of an escalating insurgency increasingly targeting civilians, a police source said yesterday.

The assault in Bardari late on Wednesday came a day after officials and witnesses said raiders killed scores of people in three other villages in the Borno region, where Boko Haram insurgents first launched their campaign to carve out an Islamist state.

The gunmen in military uniform called the Bardari villagers together, then opened fire, the police source said. “The people couldn’t identify them in time as terrorists.”

The militants then fled, crossing a river and setting fire to houses in the neighbouring village of Kayamla, close to the regional capital Maiduguri, added the source.

Boko Haram has killed thousands since it started its revolt in Africa’s largest oil-producing country in 2009 and grabbed world headlines in April when it abducted more than 200 schoolgirls in another part of Borno state.The mass kidnapping has piled political pressure on President Goodluck Jonathan, who has accepted help from the US and other foreign powers to try to free the girls

Meanwhile, Britain’s Foreign Secretary William Hague will host a meeting of African and Western officials in London next week aimed at stepping up international efforts to defeat Islamist group Boko Haram, his office said yesterday.

Boko Haram has been fighting for five years, carrying out bombings and attacks on civilians and security forces.

The June 12 London meeting will be attended by the Nigerian Foreign Minister and representatives from neighbouring African countries Benin, Chad, Cameroon and Niger, Hague’s office said. Officials from Britain, the US, France, Canada and the EU will also be present.

“The meeting will consider what more can be done both to improve regional coordination, and on economic and social development to counter the threat of Boko Haram,” the Foreign Office said.