Boko Haram: Niger to deploy troops in Nigeria
Boko Haram militants
No fewer than 750 troops from the
Niger Republic are to be deployed in the North-East to assist in the
ongoing efforts to end Boko Haram activities in the zone.
The Nigerien parliament approved the
deployment on Monday night just as the United Nations assured Nigeria
that it was firmly behind it in the fight against Boko Haram.
Niger Republic, which hosts hundreds of
Nigerians who fled from the North-East, had as of last week
witnessed a number of attacks by the islamist sect.
“The pooling of the efforts and
resources of concerned countries will contribute without doubt to
crushing this group which shows scorn, through its barbaric acts, for
the Muslim religion,” Niger’s National Assembly President, Adamou
Salifou, said .
Hours after Salifou spoke, the UN
Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon, raised concern over the activities of
Boko Haram but said Nigeria should count on its support.
Ban’s Special Representative, Mohammed
Ibn Chambas, said in Abuja that the UN, through its Department of
Peacekeeping, would ensure that the concept of operations and planning
and other activities to ensure a truly joint operational force with a
clear commanding control and unity of purpose succeeded.
“You can count on the strong support of the United Nations,” said Chambas.
He added that the global body was ready to assist Nigeria in the area of humanitarian support for displaced persons.
“The secretary-general expresses strong
support in the fight against Boko Haram. The sect is not a threat only
to Nigeria or the region but indeed is an international issue. It is an
issue that requires full international support the same way the
fight is taken against Al-Shabab, ISIS and AGNI in north Mali,” Chambas
stated.
The UN has however noted in a new report by its human rights agency, that there are increasing attacks on schoolgirls.
According to the body, a study was
carried out “seeking to analyse the problem of attacks against girls
trying to access education.”
In the report yet to be published, the
UN stated that schools in at least 70 countries were attacked between
2009 and 2014, with many specifically targeting girls, parents and
teachers advocating for gender equality in education.
It said, “Attacks against girls
accessing education persist and, alarmingly, appear in some countries to
be occurring with increasing regularity.
“The educational rights of girls and
women are often targeted due to the fact that they represent a challenge
to existing gender and age-based systems of oppression.
“Among the examples are the murders in
December 2014 of more than 100 children in a Pakistani Taliban attack at
an army school in Peshawar, the abduction of nearly 300 schoolgirls in
April 2014 by the Boko Haram in Nigeria and the 2012 shooting of
education activist Malala Yousafzai by members of the Taliban in
Pakistan.”
Meanwhile, the police in Borno State
have told journalists that a major disaster was averted by
their men and soldiers who uncovered 147 cluster bombs in Auno,
Konduga Local Government Area.
The state Commissioner of Police,
Clement Adoda, said the security operatives sighted the
explosives, recovered and destroyed them without injuries or damage to
lives and property.
He said, “I am glad that on February 8,
2015, 147 unexploded cluster ordinances were recovered at about two
Kilometres away from Auno village.”
Auno is only about 20 kilometres to Maiduguri.
But in Cameroon, Boko Haram abducted at least eight girls and killed seven hostages after seizing a public bus.
A Cameroonian resident, Chetima
Ahmidou, said on Tuesday that the bodies of the seven victims were
dumped near Cameroon’s border with Nigeria.
Ahmidou’s brother was the driver of the bus and was among those slain.
Ahmidou said that eight girls between the ages of 11 and 14 were taken back to Nigeria by the insurgents.
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