New Boko Haram Videos

Nigeria Boko Haram crisis: UN aid convoy ambushed   aboki.ngSuspected Islamist Boko Haram militants have ambushed an UN humanitarian aid convoy in northeastern Nigeria which had a military escort, officials say. The military said three civilians, including UN staff, and two soldiers were wounded in the assault. It's prompted the UN to briefly freeze assistance deliveries in Borno state, where more than two million individuals have been displaced by the insurgency. The UN says thousands of children are severely malnourished in the region. Before this month the UN's children agency warned that tens of thousands of children would die if treatment did not reach them shortly. Islamist militant group Boko Haram, which has lost most of the territory it controlled 18 months ago, is fighting to overthrow the authorities. Its seven-year insurgency has left 20,000 people dead, chiefly in the state's north-east. The wounded are in a stable condition and are being treated in the state capital Maiduguri, based on a statement from the military. "The convoy was going from Bama to Maiduguri in Borno State... returning from delivering desperately needed help" at the time of the ambush, Unicef said. "This wasn't only an attack on humanitarian workers. It is an assault on the people who most need the help and help that these workers were bringing," it added. Boko Haram never really went away, contrary to the Nigerian authorities saying that the group have been defeated "technically" or even "decisively". Nigeria and its neighbours has definitely weakened in the joint military offensive the group, losing swathes of territory in Nigeria's north east. But attacks against security forces and civilians have found a resurgence in recent months. The assaults have been boosted by media outlets of the so called Islamic State, to which the leaders of Boko Haram have vowed allegiance. It does not help that Nigeria and another battle are now fighting with against oil militants in the southern Niger Delta area. UN suspends aid to dangerous places of northeast Nigeria LAGOS, Nigeria — The United Nations is freezing aid to dangerous regions of Nigeria’s northeastern Borno state, where it says after a humanitarian convoy was ambushed by Boko Haram a half million people are starving. Three civilians including an UNICEF employee and contractor for the International Organization for Migration were wounded in Thursday’s ambush, along with two of the soldiers escorting the humanitarian workers, according to the Nigerian army and the U.N. Kids’s Fund. "Merely the U.N. missions outside the capital have been frozen," UNICEF spokeswoman Doune Porter told The Associated Press on Friday. "The ordinary support we've been giving will continue in Maiduguri," the Borno state capital of 1 million folks that hosts another million refugees from Nigeria’s 7-year-old Islamic insurgency. This wasn't only an assault on humanitarian workers. It's an attack on the folks who most need the help and support that these workers were bringing," Porter said. The convoy that was assaulted was traveling from the city of Bama, recently freed from Boko Haram, where Doctors Without Borders has warned that kids are dying every day with 15 percent suffering severe acute malnutrition and likely to die without medical and food aid.  More than 500,000 people are suffering a "disastrous humanitarian crisis" in dangerous-to-reach places, said the physicians.  A Doctors Without Borders vehicle traveling with a military escort set off a land mine earlier this week a number of kilometers (miles) in the scene of Thursday’s ambush but no one was hurt, according to soldiers who were there. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they're not authorized to talk to reporters.  Some Boko Haram combatants who surrendered have reported the militants are running out of fuel, food and arms, the military has said, saying they have cut off the insurgents’ supply lines. Military spokesman Col. Sani Kukasheka Usman said the insurgents were hiding in Meleri hamlet near Kawuri, the official entrance to the sprawling Sambisa Forest that's been a Boko Haram stronghold. The military warned earlier this month that Boko Haram fighters were fleeing its day-to-day aerial bombardments and ground attacks in the forest, heading toward the border with Cameroon. The uprising by Boko Haram, which joined the Islamic State group this past year, has killed more than 20,000 individuals, driven more than 2 million from their houses and disperse across Nigeria’s edges to Cameroon, Chad and Niger. U.N.: Almost 50,000 kids at risk of starvation due to Boko Haram campaign Almost a quarter of a million children are severely malnourished in one state in northeastern Nigeria, where a violent campaign kept help groups away and by Islamist extremists has displaced a lot more than a million individuals, a leading international group reported. Starting in 2011, Boko Haram went into nearby Cameroon and Chad and took over enormous numbers of territory in Nigeria. The combatants have been dislodged by the Nigerian military from most of the strongholds. But the insurgents have maintained their capacity to consistently strike soft targets, such as displacement camps or mosques. That has caused it to be tough for many assistance groups to run. "Though many of these areas are no longer under Boko Haram control, they're still not safe said Doune Porter, a spokeswoman for UNICEF in Nigeria. Northeastern Nigeria is now the site of one of the world’s biggest displacement catastrophes, with more than 1.4 million individuals having been forced to flee their houses. But because the region is dangerous and not accessible, it receives relatively little international assistance. Nigeria’s own assistance apparatus has a small record of effectiveness, and some experts say it is plagued by mismanagement that is severe.  "There are 2 million people we are still not able to reach in Borno state, which means that the true scope of the crisis has not yet been shown to the world," said Manuel Fontaine, UNICEF’s director for West and Central Africa. There are organizations on the ground doing work that is great, but none of us are competent to work at the scale and quality that we desire. We all must scale up." In addition to the displaced, many of those facing severe food shortages relied on farms which have been destroyed or raided by Boko Haram combatants. The malnutrition crisis has been exacerbated by the failure of government services in areas where the insurgents have already been active.  Thirty percent of health facilities damaged or and 70 percent of the water infrastructure in Borno has been destroyed, based on the United Nations.  Based on the UNICEF report, about 50,000 of the children will die if they don’t receive medical attention soon. is received by food  The report focused on Borno state, which has suffered the worst of mass kidnappings and Boko Haram’s attacks. Yet while those offenses are well known — especially the kidnapping of more than 200 schoolgirls from town of Chibok — the astounding humanitarian impact of the group’s effort has received less attention. At one displacement camp in the town of Bama, the aid group Doctors Without Borders reported that people were dying of starvation. UNICEF has appealed for $55.5 million to respond to the catastrophe in northeastern Nigeria but has received only $23 million. All the humanitarian actors are under-resourced and finance, and it’s an incredibly challenging issue," Porter said. MAIDUGURI, Nigeria — In the centre of the woods, they were kept in tiny thatched huts for months, waiting for their rapists to return each evening with dread. During the almost intolerable violence, the young women’s thoughts strayed to escape or death. The victims were as young as 8.  At the core of Boko Haram’s self-proclaimed caliphate in northeastern Nigeria was a savage campaign of rape and sexual slavery that has just recently been uncovered. Thousands of girls and women were held against their will, subject to relentless indoctrination and forced marriages. People who resisted were frequently shot.  Now, many of the women are suddenly free — saved in a number of Nigerian military operations in the last year that dislodged the extremist Islamist group from most of the territory it controlled. But there have now been few joyous family reunions for the casualties. Most of the surviving women no more have homes. Their cities were burned to the ground. The military has quietly deposited them in displacement camps or deserted buildings, where armed men leery of their loyalties monitor them. They may be labeled "Boko Haram wives." 1academy.com.ngWhen Boko Haram kidnaped 276 schoolgirls, few could have imagined such an outcome two years ago and the world reacted with the Bring Back Our Girls effort. While most of those schoolgirls from Chibok are missing, many people supposed the other women that were kidnapped would be welcomed back. Instead, they're shunned. For Halima, Hamsatu, now 25, and seven months, 15 raped nearly each and every day by the same unit of fighters in the distant Sambisa Forest. Now, they live with empty cement bags sewn together to create a curtain, in a narrow, white tent in a camp that is displacement. The women spoke on the condition that their full names weren't used so that you can freely describe their encounters. The other people living in the camp scowl at her or cautiously move away, when Halima leaves the tent to get food for the two of them. You ’re the one who was married to Boko Haram," one old woman spat at her lately. "We can’t trust any of them," said one guard.  Authorities say there are good reasons for his or her wariness. This past year, 39 of 89 Boko Haram suicide bombings were completed by women, in accordance with UNICEF. Twenty-one of those female attackers were from cities and villages apparently abducted under the age of 18, many of them ladies and converted into assassins. Female attackers have killed hundreds of people in mosques, markets and even displacement camps.  No one knows exactly why some girls who were caught and mistreated became killers. Perhaps it was the indoctrination. Maybe it was the ’ threats that are militants.  The job of reintegrating the displaced, either way has become immensely more complicated.  And for survivors attempting to proceed from a terrible chapter of these lives, there is now a new torment. "There is no trust here," said Hamsatu, crouching in her tent and wearing the identical pink, flowery dress she had on when she was kidnapped 18 months ago. In her arms, she held the infant of her captor. It was September 2014 when Boko Haram fighters took over Halima’s dwelling city of Bama and Hamsatu’s. Many of the 350,000 residents managed to flee. But the combatants immediately started killing the man civilians who couldn’t escape. Some were shot within their dwellings. Others were beheaded and thrown in mass graves. With a group of about 25 other girls, Hamsatu and Halima say, they were moved by the militants from home to home and after that compelled to go on foot and on the backs of bikes to the Sambisa Forest, where Boko Haram had set up camps for its sex slaves. The women were each assigned to some sliver of a hut, just big enough to lie down. Hamsatu said that days after, one combatant, whose name she never learned, entered the hut and said a prayer in what sounded to her like Arabic. Now they were wed, he told her. She thought of her real husband, who had been missing since the day Boko Haram stormed Bama. "I do n’t know if he’s living," she said. Video claims to reveal Nigerian girls kidnapped by militants two years past A video purporting to reveal some of the more than 200 girls kidnapped by Nigerian-based Islamist militant group Boko Haram has surfaced on the abduction’s second anniversary. In the video, thought to have already been made in December and obtained by CNN, 15 girls are expressionless as they state their names to a man heard off camera. Wednesday "We are all well," said one of the girls in the video, first air. The Nigerian government then encouraged to meet Boko Haram’s demands, which weren't stated. CNN reported that the video was made as "part of dialogues between the government and Boko Haram." Although Nigerian officials have alluded vaguely to talks that were possible, there have been few clear details even as the militants continue to wage attacks. The kidnapping of the 276 schoolgirls gained world-wide interest, and Muhammadu Buhari, Nigeria’s president, vowed to bring them home. Several girls managed to escape, but 219 are missing. The girls, taken in the northeastern town of Chibok, became an international symbol of the struggle although Boko Haram in modern times has kidnapped thousands of individuals. The Usa has dispatched surveillance drones and military trainers, and activists around the world unified on social media behind the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls. "Two years on, the Chibok girls have begun to symbolize all the civilians whose lives have already been devastated by Boko Haram," said Amnesty International’s Nigeria manager, M.K. Ibrahim. The United Nations is helping support some of the people who escaped from the Islamist group, many of whom live in abandoned buildings and straggly displacement camps. The girls are presumed to be in the remote Sambisa woods in northeastern Nigeria. Although the nation’s military has dislodged militants from cities and towns, a search-and-rescue operation in the forest is thought to be much tougher. The last time the girls were seen openly was in a May 2014 video. In Nigeria, rumors have swirled over their possible fate. Some women held by Boko Haram in other regions have described a widespread effort of sexual abuse and forced marriages. The newly released video shows the lost girls with head scarves that are flowing that hide everything but their faces. Despite the sketchy info provided in the video, Nigeria’s advice minister, Lai Mohammed, told CNN the girls in the video appeared "under no anxiety whatsoever." CNN also spoke to mothers and a classmate of the kidnapped girls, who said they recognized the young women in the video. "I felt like removing her from the screen, " said. The video’s broadcast coincided with a report by the U.N. kids’s agency UNICEF accusing Boko Haram of sharply raising the use of child suicide bombers — with girls accounting for more than three-quarters of them — in Nigeria, Cameroon and Chad. Some of the girls are presumed to have already been kidnapped by the extremists. Boko Haram is compelling more children to execute suicide bombings In the last two years, Boko Haram militants have turned to a new strategy in their assaults in West Africa: kid suicide bombers. The amount of kids involved in such blasts grew more than tenfold, from four in 2014 to 44 in 2015, based on a report released by the U.N. children’s agency on Tuesday. And more than three quarters of the children are girls — some as young as 8 years old. Another view that is chilling is added by the statements by UNICEF into the atrocities attributed on the Boko Haram group, which has conducted mass kidnappings of children, including more than 200 school girls abducted from a boarding school in northern Nigeria two years ago. Women and some girls who escaped have maintained that prisoners face forced marriages and sexual abuse. "Let us be clear: These children are victims, not perpetrators, " said Manuel Fontaine, UNICEF’s regional director for West and Central Africa, in a statement. " compelling them to carry out acts that are fatal and Deceiving children has been among the most horrific aspects of the violence and in neighboring nations." The Islamist group has been induced by offensives by security forces in Chad, Cameroon and Nigeria from most of the territory it once commanded. In response, Boko Haram has ran a growing variety of attacks on civilian targets, killing hundreds of people in recent months. The report also reveals Boko Haram’s push in northern Nigeria in recent years outside its former strongholds. 21, almost half the kid suicide attacks, were in neighboring Cameroon, it said. But international aid groups and both Nigerian officials have fought to explain the basis for the surge in child attackers. But according to UNICEF, many of the attacks are ran involuntarily. "Lads are driven to attack their own families to present their loyalty to Boko Haram, " the report said. Hundreds of girls, meanwhile, have already been taken by the group. "The measured use of kids, who may have already been coerced into carrying bombs, has created an atmosphere of suspicion and fear that's devastating consequences for daughters who have survived captivity and sexual violence UNICEF’s report was said by ". The rise in Boko Haram’s instance is stunning, although young suicide bombers are used in other battle zones. Since 2014, 20 percent of most suicide bombings completed by the group have been children, based on UNICEF. Some of the children were abducted by Boko Haram from their houses, and their bodies were identified later from remains after suicide attacks. A young girl blew herself up in a mosque in the northern Ni ger ian city of Maiduguri, killing at least 22 individuals last month. Her identity has not yet been established. The Nigerian military, because of its part, has come to treat children abducted by Boko Haram as menaces no different from adults. Boys have appeared on "wanted posters" across northeastern Nigeria — once the stronghold for the group — along with tons of top Boko Haram suspects. yohaig.ng"Banditry knows no age," said Maj. Gen. Lucky Irabor, the top military official in the northeast, when a Washington Post reporter asked about the boys on the poster. In a separate report from Human Rights Watch Tuesday released, researchers said that "Nigeria’s security forces have contributed to the issue through the use of schools as military bases, putting children at further risk of assault from the Islamist armed group." Human Rights Watch also reported that "at least 611 teachers happen to be deliberately killed." Almost 1.3 million schoolchildren have been displaced by the conflict, according to UNICEF, including 5,000 children separated from their parents. And violence just isn't the only threat facing kids in the region. By January, 195,000 children were suffering from severe acute malnutrition. Army says no more Boko Haram camps The Acting Manager, Army Public Relations, Col. Sani Usman, said there were no camps of Boko Haram terrorists in the northeastern part of the state anymore. He said: "The position in the North-East has enormously improved. The military operations or the fight against insurgency and terrorism in the North East is hinged on three things. Based on the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), Usman, who revealed this yesterday while addressing newsmen at the inauguration of Strategic Communication Course for senior officers at the Nigerian Army School of Public Relations and Information, Bonny Camp, Lagos, said the military was winning the war against terrorism.    yohaig.ng"First, conquering the Boko Haram terrorists which were executed and making room to ease humanitarian assistance which is also ongoing. "Then restoration of order and law for good government to happen. "We no more have camps of Boko Haram terrorists and we no longer have them in the territories."  On the inauguration of the communication lessons, Usman said that training of personnel was paramount, adding that it would improve competence.  He thanked the Chief of Army Staff, Lt.-Gen. Tukur Buratai, for enhancing the Nigerian Army formations.  Also, the NASPRI Commandant, Col. John Agim, said the class was to better equip senior officers who were saddled with the responsibility of shaping the information environment.  "As you settle down to face the rigours of this course, I encourage you to take advantage of the training to improve your ability in public relations. "Also, enrich your capability and by expansion in the field of arms", Agim said. cdn.turner.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/150103001318-boko-haram-file-large-169.jpg" style="max-width:440px;float:left;padding:10px 10px 10px 0px;border:0px;">Boko Haram Ambush: Military yet to confirm quantity of soldiers missing in action Not less than 10 soldiers are said to be missing in action, when troops of the Nigeria Army walked into an ambush laid by Boko Haram insurgents on Thursday morning. The authorities of the Nigeria Army are to validate the amount.  But a statement issued by the Acting Director, Army Public Relations (Ag.DAPR) Col Sani Usman, confirmed that soldiers returning from an effective operation encountered the insurgents, inflicted casualties on them, but "a few others were missing in action."  A source told The Guardian that the lost soldiers were before the ambush, in the thick of action, "but when you're exchanging fire you CAn't begin to look out for everybody. "The terrorists attacked in their amounts, the troops were taken so it was a situation that was difficult, but the real figure would be made public soon," the source said. The statement "Troops on clearance patrol at Guro Gongon village and environs to rout out remnants of Boko Haram terrorists hibernating ruined the terrorists’ makeshift camps and regained fairly a number of weapons, gear and foodstuff in the act. "However, the gallant soldiers basking on the accomplishment that is recorded, returning to their places that are defensive, ran by a group of Boko Haram terrorists who came to reinforce their comrades that are fleeing. Northern group needs amnesty for Boko Haram A group, the Northern Interfaith and Religious Organisation for Peace (NIROP), has reiterated call for an amnesty programme for repentant members of the Boko Haram sect. The group also commended President Muhammadu Buhari for the absorption of members of the local vigilance outfit, also called Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF), into security agencies. National Coordinator of NIROP, Bishop Musa Fomson, who spoke with reporters in Abuja, yesterday, said: "We desire to propose the authorities firmly consider granting amnesty to members of Boko Haram which aren't high up in its command structure, as an incentive to make them drop their weapons without further human toll.   ui.edu.ng"What's on trial here is our humanity. Deaths are being recorded on all sides as the war on terror reaches the advanced stage of clearing out remnants of the sect. A motivator from putting up stiff fight to halt the remaining terrorists, would be to support surrender. This should particularly target the non combatant elements of the terror group and those that were coerced into joining the sect." NIROP, however, warned that the amnesty should focus on demobilising Boko Haram members "and mustn't be converted into a money making jamboree. It should also be tracked in a way that it is not impossible to keep track of those that sign up for the deal." Commending President Buhari on the absorption of members of the CJTF, Bishop Fomson said: " Their training and absorption into other agencies and the Nigerian Army is a confirmation the fight against terrorism has reached the stage where homegrown remedies need to be engineered. The issue has been to disarm and demobilise the youths, after they have been compelled to carry arms. Those raising the concern were afraid of what would occur when the military has completely defeated Boko Haram. The youths could become a source of trouble because they have the skills to fight but are not gainfully employed."