By Ibrahim Mshelizza BAMA, Nigeria (Reuters) - Suspected members of the Nigerian Islamist sect Boko Haram armed with machineguns laid siege on the northeastern town of Bama on Tuesday, freeing over 100 prison inmates and leaving 55 people dead, the military said. Around 200 heavily armed members of Boko Haram arrived in buses and pick-up trucks and carried out a coordinated strike, first hitting the army barracks and the police station before breaking into the town's prison, military spokesman Sagir Musa told Reuters.

Nigerian soldiers blanketed the town of Bama on Wednesday, where residents stayed indoors after coordinated assaults by heavily armed Islamist insurgents killed 55 people. The military said the brazen raid was carried out by some 200 gunmen from the extremist group Boko Haram, who stormed the town in a convoy of six 4x4 trucks and a bus, armed with machine guns, anti-aircraft weapons, and rocket-propelled grenades. Disguised in army uniforms, the insurgents broke into a prison, killed 14 guards and set free 105 inmates, the military in northeastern Borno state said.

A group of gunmen Sunday stormed a village in northeast Nigeria on the border with Cameroon killing 10 residents in attacks on a church and a market, police said. The gunmen opened fire on a market square in Njilang village in Adamawa state, killing six people before storming a local church in the same village where they killed four worshippers, Mohammed Ibrahim, the state police spokesman, told AFP.

Nigeria's former oil minister was kidnapped Friday by gunmen who stormed his vehicle outside a mosque in the restive city of Maiduguri, a stronghold of Islamist group Boko Haram, his family said. Shettima Ali Monguno, 87, served as Nigeria's oil minister in the 1970s and held the rotating presidency of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in 1972.