Nigeria reopens schools in Borno state amid Boko Haram threat

“There’s a new collective zeal and determination on the part of the citizenry to ensure that Boko Haram is defeated, is degraded, that it will no longer have the capacity to cause mayhem and wanton destruction of lives and property by the end of the year”, Usman said.

Already poor infrastructure in rural areas of Nigeria’s northeast has been destroyed by the violence, with services such as healthcare and education devastated and agriculture severely hit by the unrest. Maiduguri is a popular target.

The routine searches and checkpoints now in place are believed to have prevented the recent attacks from killing even more people, police said.

Cameroon said that four teenage suicide bombers killed a family of five and themselves when they were stopped by self-defense combatants in that country’s Fotokol town, near the border in Nigeria.

In what is considered an act of sabotage, the officers were accused of planning to use the social media as from December to publish lies and false stories capable of thwarting the on-going fight against Boko Haram. He told ATP that the city was experiencing a supply shortage. It has forced at least 2.6 million people from their homes, killing at least 17,000 people and abducting hundreds, including the 276 schoolgirls kidnapped in Chibok village in April past year that prompted an global outcry.

Before reopening the schools, Borno state government had called on parents to send their children back to school, as fears remain due to continued blasts by the Islamist group.

President Muhammadu Buhari, who has given his military commanders until next month to crush the militants, described both attacks as “barbaric” and “cowardly”.

The U.S. state department issued a global travel alert late on Monday, warning all citizens that the threat of being caught in a terrorist attack is raised.