Amnesty International suggested on Friday that a recent attack led by the Islamic extremist group Boko Haram resulted in the slaying of hundreds of Nigerians, AP reports.

According to reporters Ibrahim Abdulaziz and Haruna Umar, “Hundreds of bodies — too many to count — remain strewn in the bush” in Baga.

The town, which neighbors Chad, had been a key military base until insurgents seized it on Jan. 3 and attacked again on Wednesday. Amnesty International released a statement claiming that Baga was also razed and as many a s 2,000 people were killed.

A majority of the slain victims are children, women and elderly people who were unable to run fast enough once the Boko Haram fighters arrived, District head Baba Abba Hassan told AP.

The attackers allegedly launched rocket-propelled grenades and fired assault rifles at Baga residents.

Muhammad Abba Gava, a spokesman for a civilians defense group that fights Boko Haram, reported that “the human carnage perpetrated by Boko Haram terrorists in Baga was enormous” and that they gave up trying to count all the bodies.

"No one could attend to the corpses and even the seriously injured ones who may have died by now,” he told AP.

Daniel Eyre, a Nigeria researcher for Amnesty International, said if the massacre reports are true, "This marks a disturbing and bloody escalation of Boko Haram's ongoing onslaught." 

In the last year alone, Boko Haram fighters have killed more than 10,000 people and displaced more than a million inside Nigeria. Hundreds of thousands escaped to neighboring countries Chad, Cameroon and Nigeria, resulting in scores of children being separated from their parents.

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(Photo: AP Photo/Boko Haram)