2 female bombers kill 58 in northeast Nigerian refugee camp

The latest attack, which killed women, children and men, was committed against people who had recently returned from Cameroon after having fled there from the insurgents, AP says.

The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) on Wednesday, February 10, disclosed that the incidents occurred when the IDPs queued up to collect their morning food ration in a camp that now accommodates over 50, 000 people displaced by the Boko Haram insurgency.

“We have, so far, recorded nine deaths, not including the two suicide bombers, and more than a dozen serious injuries”, Audu said.

According to him, the government had redoubled efforts to ensure that the people in internally displaced camps were rehabilitated.

Again, these attacks, which seem to be increasing in number, indicate that the “technical defeat” of Boko Haram being professed by the government is questionable and that the military needs to switch tactics as it appears that the terrorists have done so.

But Tuesday’s attack on Dikwa, some 90 kilometres (55 miles) from the Borno state capital Maiduguri, has called into question whether it is safe to go back – or even stay put.

Since it lost territory to a government counter-offensive past year, Boko Haram has reverted to hit-and-run attacks on villages and suicide bombings at places of worship or markets.

The bombers struck at the camp Tuesday, in the town of Dikwa, Ahmed said.

He also pledged that the German government would support the Multinational Joint Task Force with necessary weapons and equipment to tackle the menace of Boko Haram.

Boko Haram, which translates to “Western education is forbidden”, is a radical Islamic terrorist group which has existed in Nigeria since the early 1990s. Ashigashiya straddles the border of northern Cameroon and Nigeria.

Thomas-Greenfield, who announced this to journalists from across Africa in a tele-press conference, said Boko Haram attacks had forced more than one million Nigerians out of their homes.

The injured have been taken to the Borno State Specialist Hospital and the Umaru Shehu Hospital, both in Maiduguri for treatment, he added.

She said that the USA was working with Nigeria and other West African countries to look at broad economic development in the regions affected by Boko Haram.