Intensifying unrest sends 7,300 fleeing to Chad - UN

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.
Courtesy: new24
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