Damasak is the head town of the Mobbar Local Government Area, in the northeastern Nigerian state of Borno.

[citation needed] In recent years, advancing desertification in northern Nigeria has affected Damasak.

It was conquered by Idris Alooma after a siege in the 1570s or 1580s, as recorded by Ibn Furtu (who refers to the Sao as the "Sao-Gafata").

[7] German explorer Heinrich Barth (1821-1865) reported in the 1850s that Damasak (spelled as Dammasak) could still be identified from a basin of the river named after it, but that it was currently called "Fatoghana".

[10][11] On 24 March 2015, residents said that Boko Haram had kidnapped more than 400 women and children from the town as they fled from coalition forces earlier in the month.