Boko Haram attacks worsened since November, 59,000 displaced – IOM

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) has said insurgency in the Northeast has risen and displaced over 59,000 people in the last three months (between November and January), making it the highest displacement in recent years.

Mr Frantz Celestin, the chief of the UN Migration Agency said attacks by non-state armed groups in Nigeria have left relief workers unsure about the extent of needs among some communities.

Celestin said the terrorists have been applying a “hit-and-run” tactics which have caused many more persons to seek refuge in safer towns and neighbouring nations.

According to the agency, the armed extremists, notably Boko Haram militants had contributed to a decade-long humanitarian crisis in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe, that had spilt over into the Lake Chad region.

“Since November, we have seen 59,200 displaced,” IOM Nigeria’s Chief of Mission, Frantz Celestin said, noting that in the last two years, “we have not seen that many people on the move,” Celestin said.

He explained that the last two months of 2018 were marked by “an increased sophistication’” of non-State armed groups accompanied by “an increased number of attacks and success in taking towns.”

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