2015-01-09 20:36
Geneva - A spike in Boko Haram attacks in northeastern Nigeria
has sent some 7,300 people fleeing to neighbouring Chad in a matter of
days, the UN refugee agency said on Friday.
Members of the armed terrorist movement on Saturday captured the town of Baga in Borno state.
The
town lies close to Lake Chad, where the borders of Nigeria, Chad, Niger
and Cameroon converge, and the town has been attacked by the group
before.
Boko Haram went on to destroy at least 16 towns and villages on Wednesday in the remote north of Borno state.
"In
western Chad, some 7,300 Nigerian refugees have arrived in the past 10
days, fleeing attacks by insurgents on Baga town and surrounding
villages," Adrian Edwards, spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for
Refugees (UNHCR), told reporters in Geneva.
Also read: Boko Haram seizes military base near Baga
"With
the recent influxes, Chad is now hosting over 10,000 refugees," Edwards
said, adding that the government has requested assistance from aid
agencies.
Chadian authorities has asked UNHCR to help relocate
more than 1,000 refugees reportedly stranded on an island in Lake Chad,
he added.
Boko Haram, which has declared a "caliphate" in zones it
controls in northeast Nigeria, has become increasingly active across
the borders of Cameroon and Niger.
Edwards said the conflict in
northeastern Nigeria has led to an exodus of about 135,000 people,
including 35,000 who have sought refuge in Cameroon and 10,000 in Chad.
At least 850,000 others have been internally displaced within the Nigerian states of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe, he said.
The Boko Haram conflict has claimed more than 13,000 lives since 2009.
The
Islamist group was founded in Maiduguri more than a decade ago and the
northern city was the epicentre of the conflict until its fighters were
pushed out into more rural parts of the northeast.
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