1st August, 2019
Over 27,000 people were killed since the outbreak of Boko Haram militancy in Nigeria in 2009, according to data supplied by the United Nations (UN).
Edward Kallon, the UN humanitarian coordinator in Nigeria said 130,000 people have also been newly displaced from their homes, as the insurgency took a new dimension with Islamic State of West Africa(ISWAP) emerging to supplant the Boko Haram, in lethal attacks.
“Rising insecurity in recent months has pushed over 130,000 newly displaced people on a long trudge. Arriving en masse to displaced camps, they are looking upon us for aid and protection,” the statement said.
Boko Haram, whose agenda is to maintain a virtual caliphate in Nigeria, had also spread its tentacles to neighbouring countries including Chad, Niger, and northern Cameroon.
The UN office in Abuja expressed the humanitarian community’s willingness to assist in abating the crisis while organizing on Wednesday a remembrance of 10 years of the security crisis in Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe — the three most-affected northeastern states in Nigeria.
Humanitarian aid workers, school boys and girls, women, and security operatives, among others, have either been killed or abducted by Boko Haram during the decade of violence.
The Nigerian government has consistently declared winning the war against the Boko Haram militants, despite growing concerns by citizens.
On Tuesday, a presidential spokesman, Garba Shehu, had maintained that the group’s agenda had been largely defeated by government forces.
However, at least 70 people were killed last weekend in an attack by Boko Haram on three villages in Borno.