April 16, local time, officials in borno state in north-eastern Nigeria confirmed that the town of Damasak in the state had been attacked by militants from the extremist group Boko Haram, killing 18 people and wounding 21 others.
The United Nations refugee agency said on the 16th, Damasak town as many as 65,000 people were forced to flee.
Nigeria’s Borno governor Babagana Zulum 16 in the town of Damasak inspection, said a group of “Boko Haram” militants recently attacked the town, killing 18 people were killed and 21 injured.
The U.N. refugee agency said Thursday that the town of Damasak has been attacked three times in seven days, with attackers looting and burning private homes, warehouses for humanitarian agencies, police stations, clinics and UNHCR protection services.
After the latest attack on the 14th, 65,000 people, or 80 percent of the population, were forced to flee, including Nigerians and Nigeriens living in the area, many fled to Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state, and the neighboring town of Qadam in Yobe state, while others entered Niger’s Diffa region.
Zulum said the government is fully assessing the damage caused by the attack and has taken steps to strengthen local security to prevent a recurrence of the attack.
Borno state in north-eastern Nigeria is home to the extremist group Boko Haram, which has been repressed by Nigeria’s military in neighbouring countries such as Niger and Chad for years, and has continued to break down, carrying out frequent attacks of all kinds, resulting in large numbers of civilian and civilian casualties.
Violence in north-eastern Nigeria’s Lake Chad Basin region, which borders Niger, Chad and Cameroon, has uprooted 3.3 million people, including more than 300,000 Nigerian refugees and some 2.2 million displaced people in north-eastern Nigeria, the UNHCR said.
