UN: Boko Haram attacks displace 50,000 in Niger
Date
6/7/2016 11:49:47 PM
Geneva: Tens of thousands of people have fled southeastern Niger following deadly attacks by Boko Haram insurgents on the town of Bosso in recent days, the United Nations said Tuesday.
"An estimated 50,000 people or so fled," UN refugee agency (UNHCR) spokesman Adrian Edwards told reporters in Geneva.
The attacks beginning Friday against a military post in Bosso in Niger's troubled Diffa region killed 26 soldiers, including two from neighbouring Nigeria.
A total 55 insurgents from the Nigeria-based Islamist group were killed and "many" injured, according to authorities.
Edwards said most of those fleeing the violence were walking westwards to Toumour, some 30 kilometres west of Bosso.
"Many people are reportedly traumatized and worried about their safety. People are sleeping in the open and urgently need shelter and other assistance," he said.
Edwards said some of the displaced had moved on from Toumour and were heading to the town of Diffa, around 140 kilometres west of Bosso, and northwards towards Kabel awa, where a camp for the internally displaced is at near capacity with some 10,000 people".
"The welfare of these people and others forced to flee the violence in Bosso is of great concern," he said.
The latest attack was among the deadliest by the group in Niger since it began launching raids in the country in February 2015 from its stronghold in neighbouring Nigeria.
At least 240,000 people have been displaced in the Diffa region since then.
Boko Haram's seven-year insurgency has devastated infrastructure in Nigeria's impoverished northeast and forced around 2.1 million people in the country to flee their homes, according to UNHCR.
The unrest has left at least 20,000 people dead in Nigeria and made more than 2.6 million homeless.
QNA