New Satellite Pictures Show The Staggering Extent Of Devastation Caused By Boko Haram

Between Jan. 3 and Jan. 4, Boko Haram mounted the deadliest offensive in its five year history, killing more than 2,000 people in the Nigerian town of Baga and its surrounding villages.

Baga used to host an outpost of the Nigerian army, which was completely erased.

According to Musa Alhaji Bukar, a senior government official who spoke to the BBC, Baga, which once had a population of about 10,000 people, is now "virtually nonexistent."

The new set of pictures released by Amnesty shows how devastating the attack had been: the pictures use a False Color Infrared Image technology to show flourishing vegetation in bright red.

This picture had been taken on Jan. 2, just one day before the raid took over. You can see how healthy the vegetation was:

Amnesty International

And this is how the village looked on Jan. 7, after the terrorists had burned away much of it:

Amnesty International

The comparison is staggering:

According to Amnesty's managing director for government relations Adotei Akwei, who spoke with ABC News, the photos directly contradicted the Nigerian government's report of 150 victims in total.

Akwei said that those figures "confirm the Nigerian government's continuing policy of underreporting the attacks of Boko Haram and the civilian casualties." Getting information from the region is increasingly hard, and the violence has kept reporters and foreign observers away.

These two pictures show that many of boats which used to lay at the shore of Lake Chad, close to Baga, had disappeared after the attack. Amnesty International believes that many civilians tried to escape from the massacre by crossing the lake.

This picture shows the area between Baga and Lake Chad. The yellow dots are once again flourishing vegetation, which has been burnt away from Baga: