Thousands of Nigerians flee Boko Haram to borders with Cameroon
November 27, 2016, 12:28 pm

Nigerian soldiers inspect a Boko Haram camp in northeastern Borno state after it was seized amid heavy fighting. The Nigerian president has vowed to destroy Boko Haram this year [Xinhua]

“The team found refugees were living under tough conditions. Some are staying with destitute host families but most were sleeping in the open under trees, in makeshift shelters or on the dirt floors of dilapidated classrooms,” UNHCR spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters.

The latest figures by the UNHCR put the number of out of camp refugees in by the northernmost border of Cameroon at around 27,000.

Earlier in November, a UNHCR team visited previously inaccessible border areas of Far North Region, including Fotokol, Makary and Mogode districts. These areas were recently liberated by the Nigerian military and abandoned by Boko Haram.

“We would like to register all the refugees but security remains an issue in a region where Boko Haram attacks and killings continue to be reported. As a result, humanitarian access to those in need, remains difficult. The prevailing security situation has impacted UNHCR’s intervention in the north of the country, where there are also some 199,000 internally displaced people,” UNHCR spokesperson Leo Dobbs said in a press briefing.

Boko Haram is based in the northeastern state of Borno in Nigeria. But in recent years it has carried out cross-border incursions in neighboring Cameroon, Mali, and Niger with deadly effect.

Boko Haram, which controls large swathes of northeastern Nigeria, has come under repeated attacks from the Nigerian, Chadian and Cameroonian armies in recent weeks.

Although African nations have launched a combined military effort, sanctioned by the African Union and supported in part by Washington, to destroy the militant group, and the extremist group has lost some territory, it has not lost its capability to launch suicide and car bomb attacks or kidnap women and children for leverage.

The conflict has displaced some 2.1 million people in northeastern Nigeria.

Kidnapped girls

Nigeria has appealed to the United Nations for help in negotiating the return of more than 200 girls kidnapped by Boko Haram two years ago.

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari told UN Secretary-General Ban ki-Moon on the sidelines of the General Assembly in New York Thursday that the Islamist terrorist group recently indicated a willingness to release about 50 girls in exchange for Boko Haram fighters held by government forces.

A number of previous attempts to do a prisoner exchange failed in recent months.

In April 2014, Boko Haram kidnapped 276 girls from their school in the town of Chibok in the northeastern state of Borno, considered the birthplace and strategic center of the terrorist group.

Fifty-seven girls subsequently managed to escape but it is believed that at least 200 still remain in Boko Haram custody. There are fears some of them may have been forced into suicide operations.

The BRICS Post with inputs from Agencies