Over 410 births in camps for Boko Haram displaced: relief agency

Nearly 450 schools have reopened in Borno state since October, more than 18 months after education was halted in the wake of an attack by Boko Haram militants on a boarding school in neighbouring Yobe state in which they killed 59 students.

“Over 410 births were recorded between August and September” in the camps in Borno and Adamawa state, said the head of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Muhammad Sani Sidi.

The Army said yesterday that several Boko Haram members fleeing the battlefield in Borno State have been arrested in Lagos.

Boko Haram declared allegiance to the Islamic State group in March and stepped up its suicide bombing campaign, more than tripling Cameroon’s number of displaced people to 158,000. The group had time to “separate the teenage girls from married women, set the whole village ablaze and left with the girls unchallenged”.

In a related development, Boko Haram militants had reportedly stormed Gulak, the administrative headquarters of Madagali in northern part of Adamawa state in an apparent mission to order to take it over the facility. Boko Haram, which fights to establish a caliphate throughout the occupied territories, claimed responsibility for the attack targeting the Shias.

Members of Boko Haram, armed with Kalashnikovs, attacked the village in the southern region of Diffa over the weekend. The United Nations has registered around 50 attacks and clashes between Islamist fighters and Niger troops since February. “It’s doable. But it’s really a very small window of opportunity”.

Buhari has vowed that, with the Nigerian military working at full capacity, Boko Haram will cease to exist on his watch by December.