UNICEF said that as Nigerian government forces captured and secured territory, aid officials were starting to piece together the scale of the humanitarian disaster left behind in the group’s wake.
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Anti-corruption groups in Nigeria have begged U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to help speed the return of billions of dollars looted from the country’s treasury by local officials.
“Meanwhile, a man identified as the “spiritual leader” of Boko Haram in Nigeria” s northwestern state of Kano has been arrested, together with other insurgents plotting to carry out attacks in the country, security authorities said Monday. It said lack of adequate information stopped either sides from addressing the issue.
The statement, signed by army spokesperson Col. Sani Kukaskeka Usman, says the attack took place while militants were praying in a village near their base in northeast Nigeria, and that it was “the most unprecedented and spectacular air raid”. Kerry, speaking Tuesday morning in northern Sokoto city, made no reference to the army’s report. The group made worldwide headlines two years ago when it kidnapped more than 200 girls from a school in Chibok. The forest has been Boko Haram’s chief hideout for several years, and is believed to be where it is keeping a group of girls kidnapped from a dormitory in Chibok in 2014, an incident that sparked outrage worldwide.
According to the New York Times, this would not be the first time that Nigeria has reported to have killed a Boko Haram leader.
Boko Haram, which a year ago pledged allegiance to Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, has been on the defensive in recent months after President Buhari revamped the military’s counterterrorism strategy.
Boko Haram, which says it wants to create a strict Islamic state in Muslim majority northern Nigeria, is blamed for some 20,000 deaths since beginning its insurgency in 2009.
A video of the alleged missing girls abducted from the northeastern town of Chibok emerged shortly after their abduction.
Nigeria has made “important progress”, Kerry said.
There have been recent signs of rifts between at least parts of Boko Haram and Islamic State.
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The report added that out of the almost half a million children at risk, the Nigerian children, who live in the embattled Borno State, Boko Haram’s heartland, would lose their lives by the end of the year if they do not receive treatment and food.
