JTF and Boko Haram. 4 dies

Four Boko Haram men have been killed by the Joint Task Force (JTF) in Maiduguri, the troubled Borno State capital where the sect’s members have been burning schools in a new approach to their increasingly violent insurgency.  
Borno State Commissioner for Education Musa Inuwa Kubo, said seven schools - including two yesterday - have been burnt down in the last few days.

Thousands of children have been left without schools in the middle of their term. 
“The destruction of schools in Maiduguri is a great setback to the state,” Inuwa told Reuters. “It is really a sad development because the schools belong to the people and the poor are suffering as a result of the destruction,” he lamented.
The JTF said it gunned down four Boko Haram members in Maiduguri on Wednesday.

JTF spokesman, Lt Col Hassan Mohammed, spoke while parading the body of one of the sect members at Bayan-Quarters area, where he was killed while driving in a Volkswagen Golf taxi car at about 6:30pm on Wednesday. He said the sect members might have been out for a deadly operation, given the heavy arms in their possession. 

Lt. Col Mohammed described the day’s operation as “a bad day for the sect”.
Their refusal to stop at check points, Lt Col Mohammed said, prompted soldiers in the JTF to trail them; “and as they made attempt to escape, our men did not waste chance to bring them down”.

As a result of Boko Haram activities and the reaction of the security agencies, at least 10,000 people have fled northern Nigeria for neighbouring Niger and Chad to escape a military sweep targeting Bokon Haram members, officials said yesterday.
Niger’s government said at least 10,000 of its citizens had returned from northern Nigeria over the past six months, and the International Organisation for Migration said more than 800 Chadians had returned in recent days.

The influx of people into Niger, a landlocked desert state that is also dealing with tens of thousands of refugees from Libya’s war and a rebellion in northern Mali, could worsen an expected food shortage there this year.

“According to statistics, we’ve seen from the police, we have 10,000 Nigeriens that have returned on their own since the start of violence in Nigeria,” said Boube Yaye, Niger’s permanent secretary in charge of Nigeriens abroad.
He added that at least 13 Nigeriens living in northern Nigeria had been falsely arrested in the sweep, and appealed to Nigerian security forces to show restraint.

Qasim Sufi, of the International Organization for Migration, said returnees to Chad, including many children who had been enrolled in Koranic schools in Nigeria, were fleeing soldiers targeting Boko Haram members in their villages.
“They’re all saying the same thing, that it is getting very bad in their villages,” he said.
The United States yesterday issued a travel warning on Nigeria following violent crime committed by armed gangs and militants wearing police uniforms, the U.S. State Department said.

The State Department’s travel advisory warning said: “Violent crime committed by individuals and gangs, as well as by persons wearing police and military uniforms, remain a problem throughout the country.”

The advisory noted that Boko Haram took responsibility for a series of attacks in February that killed dozens of people and left many more injured. The State Department said kidnapping remains a security concern as well. Five U.S. citizens were kidnapped in Nigeria last year and another was abducted from his vehicle in January.

The advisory said foreigners shouldn’t travel to areas designated as conflict areas by the government as Abuja may likely consider such activity illegal.
“The state of emergency gives the government sweeping powers to search and arrest without warrants,” the State Department warned.