Senegal arrests five over Boko Haram ties, miles from group’s heartland

Ngouboua is home to displaced Chadians as well as Nigerian refugees who have fled the violence in Islamist group Boko Haram’s strongholds in northeast Nigeria, and the militants have attacked it several times in the past year.

According to the government spokesman, “the intervention of Chadian defense and security against Boko Haram militant group has been successful and has significantly” reduced the group’s influence in the region.

He said that members of the sect enjoyed the complicity of a few inhabitants of the Lake Chad region, which borders Nigeria, where Boko Haram is based.

But in the last few months, the group has intensified attacks in remote areas around Lake Chad.

In one of the most recent attacks by Boko Haram in the country, at least 41 people died in October when suicide bombers attacked a weekly market in Baga Sola.

Chad’s Communications Minister Hassan Sylla Bakari said the order, effective immediately, would grant authorities new powers to search and monitor residents in the region.

Benin, Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria agreed to establish the 8,700-strong force, but it has yet to start operations in earnest because of reported funding difficulties.