Thousands flee homes as Boko Haram insurgents step up attacks

TENS of thousands of people have fled their homes in south-east Niger following near back-to-back attacks since Friday by Boko Haram insurgents on Bosso in the troubled Diffa region, the UN refugee agency said.

“As of this morning (yesterday), the situation in Bosso is unclear,” spokesman Adrian Edwards of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees told the bi-weekly news briefing in Geneva, recalling that the UNHCR had warned that the security and humanitarian situation in the region was worsening.

“We have not been working directly in Bosso since February 2015, when the insurgency spread from Nigeria to Niger, but we operate through local implementing partners to deliver help.”

The attacks occurred on June 3, June 5 and June 6.

Edwards said the UNHCR was working with authorities and partners on a co-ordinated response to the displacement, and that an emergency team would be deployed to the Diffa region this week.

The most attacks follow rising violence in and around Bosso in recent weeks.

An assault on May 31 in the nearby town of Yebi that killed nine people forced an estimated 15 000 people to seek shelter in Bosso.

Many had been evacuated from islands in Lake Chad for security reasons.

An estimated 50000 people fled Friday’s attack, mainly walking westward to Toumour, about 30km west of Bosso.