"The attackers, who are no doubt Boko Haram insurgents, attacked Amchaka and nearby villages this morning, hurling IEDs (improvised explosive devices) into homes and setting them on fire," Baba Shehu Gulumba, a government administrator in Bama district, told AFP.
"They then went on a shooting spree, opening fire on confused residents as they tried to flee, killing 60 people and injuring several others," Gulumba said by phone from Maiduguri, the state capital.
The attackers stormed Amchaka and neighbouring villages in Bama using trucks, motorcycles and two armoured vehicles, shooting residents and torching homes, he said.
Other local sources confirmed the attack but did not give a death toll.
The assailants vandalised boreholes, the only water source for the villagers, Gulumba added.
The attacks have prompted a mass exodus of people from villages in the area.
Across the border in northern Cameroon, Cameroon security forces killed three suspected Boko Haram Islamists in Amchide town, a security source there said.
Military reinforcements were in the area because armed Boko Haram militants opened fire at a police post in the town earlier Sunday, injuring one gendarme and a policeman, the source said.
Scores have been killed in recent days in Borno state, according to local lawmakers.
Fearing attack, around 400 students in the state had boycotted university entrance exams on Saturday.
The military announced a state of emergency last May in northern Nigeria and launched a major offensive to crush the Boko Haram insurgency, which has been running for five years and has claimed thousands of lives.
Violence in the region -- which includes Yobe and Adamawa as well as Borno -- has already killed some 1500 people this year alone.
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