Boko Haram: Over 50 Nigerian Refugees Starved To Death In Niger Republic

8 years ago

Boko Haram: Over 50 Nigerian Refugees Starved To Death In Niger Republic

Thousands of Nigerians deported from neighbouring Niger Republic following threats from Boko Haram militants have died en route to the country from lack of food and water,
evacuees told Reuters news agency.

“I counted over 50 people that died on our way out of (the town of) Lalewa when the Niger soldiers were chasing us as if we are animals,” one of the deportees told the agency

The United Nations humanitarian coordinator, OCHA, said that 25,000 people had arrived N’Guigmi and Bosso towns in south-eastern Niger Republic after fleeing their island homes on Lake Chad, adding that most of these families needed shelter, food and water.

The governor of Niger’s Diffa region initially told people to leave for security reasons after an attack by Boko Haram, which killed 74 people.

“I can’t believe what happened: for the government of Niger to just wake up and decide to chase us out of a place where we had been doing business for years,” said a deportee.

“Some were picked up in trucks at the border town of Mainé-Soroa and taken to two camps in Geidam in Yobe State, set up in a primary school and a small stadium,” he added.

Why It Took 5 Years To Defeat Boko Haram – Air Chief
The Chief of Air Staff (CAS), Air Vice Marshal Adesola Amosu, has explained why it took the Nigerian military five years to defeat the Boko Haram insurgents.

According to CAS, prior to the postponement of the 2015 general elections, the military did not deploy the use of technology in the fight.

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Amosu made the revelation yesterday during a press conference to mark the 51st anniversary of the Nigerian Air Force during which he revealed that the introduction of technology to the war and the assistance of Pakistan, Ukraine and South Africa turned the war in favour of the Nigerian military.

According to him, the postponement of the general election enabled the military to take advantage of two major problems which hampered the progress of military operation, including securing the cooperation of neighbouring countries and provision of necessary equipment.

“The extension that we got for the elections was to essentially take advantage of two situations. We have been discussing with our neighbours in trying to secure their support; we got the support in principle just before the election was postponed. Again, we got increased supply of equipment that we needed for fighting.”

Added to the above, he asserted, is the military’s introduction of technological tools to its campaign.

“When I talk of technology, there is what we call Network Enabled Technology (NET). What are the advantages of having network enabled capabilities? We have some limited capability in regard to that. We have the beach craft; it is able to give us effective down streaming so we can actually see the battle, and that’s exactly what we are doing most of the time.

“The Network Enabling Technology is going to really change a lot of things in the Nigerian Air Force. About 10 days ago when we saw the population coming out of Sambisa Forest, no matter how good your surveillance is, surprises will show up. I personally was surprised to see that population coming out from the forest. But if you have technology, you would have noticed that this population was right there in the forest.

“But when you have the technology, you don’t need to have this sustained long operation; we would have been able to identify the gathering over a period of time and would have been able to bring the operation to its conclusion,” Amosu said.

The air chief revealed that the federal government had procured a large quantity of surveillance and communication equipment to strengthen the fighting capabilities of the military, just as he acknowledged the huge contributions of Ukraine, Pakistan and South Africa which, he said, turned the war against the terrorists.

He said the support was mainly in the provision of training and expendables.

“When it comes to the partnership, we want to thank the nations of Pakistan, Ukraine and South Africa – we got huge expendables from them; that changed the entire situation in the north east. We want to thank them and we really appreciate the partnership,” he said.

The air chief proposed that in order to end the problem of lack of equipment, the federal government should transact the business with the manufacturers of the equipment while the military goes to pick them up from the stores.

This, he said, will eliminate the suspicion of diversion of funds by the military.

“When we came in, we even made this easy; we even choose the option of you (government) paying the manufacturer and let us have the equipment – if there is no trust, and this is what we have been doing. We don’t want the funds; we want the funds to be made available to the manufactures – we just pick up the equipment, so the federal government can focus on that aspect,” he said.

LEADERSHIP Friday reports that the Boko Haram insurgents engaged in full scale insurgency in 2010 shortly after the extrajudicial killing of their leader, Mohammed Yusuf, leading a bloody campaign that has claimed an estimated 10,000 Nigerian lives and thousands others maimed.

However, since February 2015, the insurgents have not been able to carry out attacks following the military operations which were stepped up after the postponement of the general elections.

Adamawa IDPs Camp Joyous As Families Get Reunited
The Malkohi Internally Displaced Persons Camp where 275 women and children recently rescued by Nigerian Troops are camped was animated yesterday as some children and women reunited with family members who kept trooping into the facility in search of loved ones.

One of the lucky victims who got reunited with her family members was Aisha Abbas, who was abducted in Dikwa last year.

A younger brother to Aisha said, on condition of anonymity, that the family had been searching for her since their town came under Boko Haram siege about a year ago and had since resigned to fate thinking that she must have died a long time ago.

He said, “I heard over the radio that rescued persons from our area were handed over to the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) by Nigerian troops; that’s why we rushed down here and luckily enough we saw our sister. I am surprised to see her here as we believed she must have died a long time ago and have since resigned our fate to God.

“We thank Allah for His infinite mercy that today we are reuniting with her. We all thought that she was killed, because many had been killed, and some of us escaped death by the whisker.”

Another lucky victim, Fatima Abba, 20, who was abducted near Chibok about six months ago, was similarly reunited with her family amidst tears of joy.

“We thank God that we have reunited with our family members after months of being in captivity,” her relatives enthused.

Meanwhile, psychosocial therapists have been deployed into the camp to help the traumatized victims regain their balance.

“The victims were screened by health and security operatives to authenticate their status while NEMA and other sister agencies provided them with psychological therapy to ease their trauma,” said the Adamawa camp coordinator, Mr Sa’ad Bello.