“The villages attacked on Monday were Bundaram, where they killed four people, Fishdam, where they killed two people, and Kwatar Mali, where they killed four people“, Gamandi said.
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Rescued women and children arrive Thursday at the military office in Maiduguri, Nigeria.
When the talks wrapped up on Thursday, the made vague pledges to improve intelligence-sharing on Boko Haram and security cooperation along their long border.
President Muhammadu Buhari and President Paul Biya have agreed to work towards the completion of the demarcation of the land border between Nigeria and Cameroon before the end of the year. He added that there was no casualty on the military or any of their equipment.
A top ranking officer of Nigerian immigration service who confided in our reporter on the stage of privity to the repatriation of this new batch of 1500 IDPs, said the actions of their Cameroonian counterpart, were due to security concerns.
“Over the years, the military was neglected and underequipped to ensure the survival of certain regimes, while other regimes, based on advice from a few foreign nations, deliberately reduced the size of the military and underfunded it”, he lamented.
AP FILE -Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau speaking on camera.
The planned 8,700-strong task force of troops from Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Benin was supposed to start operations from July 31, but has been dogged by lack of funding and political will.
Alayi Wari, who fled his home in Fitinewa on Lake Chad for Nigeria, told AFP Boko Haram had stormed 10 villages in the past month, and that the army has since recaptured seven.
“The number of dead and victims are rising, economic activities have been crippled in affected areas, the number of refugees and displaced persons are ever increasing”.
“We killed 117 Boko Haram fighters during the two-week operation”.
The extremist group, whose name loosely translates as “Western education is forbidden”, launched their armed insurgency in 2009 and claim to want to found a strict Islamic caliphate in and around northeastern Nigeria.
Even with the victories, suicide bombers continue to attack civilians.
The Nigerian military said it freed hundreds back in March and seized numerous cities held by Boko Haram in the northeastern part of the country.
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A Deputy Director, Army Public Relations and spokesman, 7 Division, Nigerian Army, Colonel Tukur Gusau, said the hostages include 25 children, 29 women and five elderly men.
