The road to baga is littered with burned out cars,winding through terrain that has proved fertile ground for radical ideologies to take root.On cusp of sahara,it traces a route through the former ancient islamic kingdom of Bornu,a thriving sultanate that grew rich on trans-desert trade.Now known as Borno state,today it is home to some Africa's most impoverished communities. Bokoharam,Islamist insurgents whose bomb are responsible for the carcasses of cars on the roadside,have thrived by tapping into yearning for ancient glory amid cripple poverty. Now the residents of Baga,a remote fishing settlement on the shores of lake chad,have a new reason to be angry.Last month,the village was the scene of one of Nigeria's most deadly incident since the islamist insurgency began in 2009,with locals saying 185 of their kins died,most of them civilian and most of them burned to death.That figure has been disputed by the military,who told the guardian that only 37 were killed,most of whom are bokoharam fighters. The afternoon before it happened,Ali,a white haired village chief,overheard a conversation that his stomach.Just outside his mud walled home,two men in military uniforms were talking heatedly:one wanted to set fire to Ali's neighbour's house;the other was trying to stop him.That morning a Nigerian corporal known as Kia,had been killed after been ambushed by bokoharam fighters. "One of the men said, we must avenge his dea th,we must set a house on fire;"the other one said no,he wanted no part of this,"Ali said sitting on his orange raffia straw mat at the meeting convened by the village elders. "After that,"he continued I don't know what happened."Ali looked nervously at the dozen of men in flowing robes packed under the thatched roof for the meeting,many of them young and unemployed,a key source of support for bokoharam. When the morning of 17 april dawned,much of this fishing village was a smouldering wreck. Black carcasses houses and skeletal trees stood starkly against the expanse of fine pale sand.The devastation wrought here highlights how bokoharam is turning cross-border raids with deadly consequences. Members of the violent jihadist have infiltrated this town along the dozens of sandy foothpath leading to their hideouts in the sahara desert.The last bokoharam member arrested was about two weeks ago.He had boarded a bus going to mali,he was carrying a lot of cash and a lot of weapons a malian security official in Goa said.In Baga every public school has been shut since august 2012,when leaflet appeared on school walls threatened to kill anyone attending,a resident says. Kashim Shettima,the governor of borno state,said poverty was at the root of the problem ."Unless ,and until,we address some of these fundamental issues ,believe me,the future is very bleak for all of us,"he said. Civilians caught in crossfire can only hope for a better days"imagine it is night,we are inside our homes ,then suddenly our homes were on fire ,"said a village in Baga,standing in front of his mud home.Looking over to the green grasses on the shores of lake chad in the distance,he added:'we are simply fishermen here.We just want peace.