Boko Haram
- Details
- Boko Haram
A giant red banner proclaiming, “Let’s not forget” goes up in a Yaoundé neighbourhood in the heart of the Cameroonian capital. The fine print below the headline lists 1,200 names of Boko Haram victims.
Pointing to a name, Eric Benjamin Lamere, a member of the activist group United for Cameroon, explains that the youngest victim was just four days old and the oldest was 87. “These are not the only victims in Cameroon, but we managed to gather enough information on those ones so that they could be identified accurately," he explains.
Accurate statistics of Boko Haram victims across the Lake Chad basin do not exist – a reflection of the remote regions the jihadist group target as well as the weaknesses of the West African governments struggling to cope with the crisis.
But the humanitarian toll has been huge. The Washington DC-based Council on Foreign Relations estimates around 28,000 people have been killed in Nigeria alone since 2011, while 2.8 million have been displaced in the Lake Chad region, which includes Chad, Cameroon, Niger and Nigeria.
‘We're there – finishing the war’
In Yaoundé, far from Cameroon’s northern border, the Boko Haram threat seems remote – and that’s why the activists at United for Cameroon are on a national awareness mission.
At a military hospital in Yaoundé though, the conflict feels all too real.
A group of special forces officers are visiting Cameroonian soldiers wounded on the frontline. Around 700 soldiers are being treated at the hospital, many of them amputees injured by landmines planted by Boko Haram militants.
"Our hearts are with you. Even if you don't see us, we're there – finishing the war,” a senior Cameroonian military officer tells a wounded soldier lying on a hospital bed.
Too early to proclaim victory
On May 14, the four Lake Chad basin states and their international partners are meeting in the Nigerian capital of Abuja for a regional security summit. The meeting is an opportunity for the affected states – as well as international partners such as France, the US, UK and the EU – to address vital policy issues including the humanitarian situation.
Cooperation between the affected countries in recent years has seen some success in the military counter-insurgency targeting Boko Haram. The number of attacks have decreased with the jihadist group going after smaller, softer targets with reduced success, according to a recent report by the Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG).
In December 2015, for instance, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari declared that “technically” Nigeria had “won the war” against Boko Haram.
But the ICG has warned that although “the military response to Boko Haram has become more cogent, the Lake Chad states should not too quickly proclaim 'mission accomplished'."
The report, titled, “Boko Haram on the Back Foot?” noted that even if the militant group was forced to “abandon all territorial pretensions in Nigeria’s northeast and the Lake Chad area, or are forced to abandon their guerrilla war, some Boko Haram militants at least are likely to seek to continue their insurgency in some form, probably through terror attacks.”
Joseph Vincent Ntuda Ebode, head of the Centre for Political and Strategical Studies in Yaoundé (Centre De Recherche Des Études Politiques Et Stratégique de Yaoundé), agrees with the assesment. "This is a nonconventional war and even if we defeat the enemy nobody will come to sign a treaty or peace agreement. Also, you know that this war against Boko Haram has another ugly face: the terrorist attacks. And nobody knows for certain if they'll ever stop."
Boko Haram is not the only jihadist group threatening the region.
The January 15 Ouagadougou attack in Burkina Faso – which killed 30 people – and the deadly March 13 shooting in the Ivorian resort town of Grand-Bassam have heightened security concerns across West Africa.
The two attacks were claimed by al Mourabitoun, a militant group allied to al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). Coming in the wake of the November 2015 attack on the Radisson Blu in Bamako, Mali, the recent terrorist surge has underscored the rise in Islamist violence across West Africa.
Experts warn that regional capitals are particularly vulnerable to terror attacks by jihadist groups targeting poorly secured “soft targets”. The solution, the ICG maintains, would be for authorities to “move beyond military cooperation and design a more holistic local and regional response, lest Boko Haram or similar groups remain a long- term threat.”
France24
- Details
- Elangwe Pauline
- Hits: 3277
- Details
- Boko Haram
A delegation led by the Army Chief of Staff of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, General Abayomi Gabriel Olonisakin has paid a 24 hour working visit to Cameroon.The General was accompanied by the Commander of the Multi National Joint Task Force, Major General Lamidi Oyebayo Adeosun and other top ranking military personnel of the federal army.
Shortly after touching down from the private jet at the Yaoundé Nsimalen International Airport, the Nigeria Delegation had a working session Defence Headquarters in Yaoundé with the Defence Chief of Staff of the Republic of Cameroon, Lieutenant General Rene Claude Meka.
Discussions centred on tactical and operational strategies to further strengthen military cooperation and synergise efforts to boost the fight against the terrorist group Boko Haram. Speaking to the press after the close door working session, General Abayomi Gabriel Olonisakin said his visit had two principal objectives, first the thank the government of Cameroon for the relentless efforts of Cameroonian troops fighting on both sides of the border to eradicate book haram from their strongholds. Secondly, the discuss modalities to enhance military cooperation.
The head of the Nigerian military delegation saluted the efforts of the Multinational Joint Task Force, supported by national troops from Cameroon and Nigeria in dealing with the Boko Haram menace. In relation to actions on the battle ground, he said battles need planning and the respective armies around planning a synergised action to bout out the terrorists from their hideouts.
After the working session, the Delegation was received at the Secretariat of State of the National Gendarmerie where General Abayomi Gabriel Olonisakin reviewed the troops before he was received in audience, by the Secretary of State in the Ministry of Defence in charge of the National Gendarmerie, Jean Baptiste Bokam on behalf of the Minister Delegate at the Presidency in charge of defence.
The global strategy to eradicate Boko haram was discussed during the close door audience. The Nigerian Delegation returned to Abuja, Nigeria shortly after the session.
The latest high level military encounter between top officers of Cameroon and Nigerian Armed forces comes less than a month after the Multinational Joint Task Forces evaluated its activities during the Special session of the Committee of Chiefs of Defence Staff of the Member Countries of the Lake Chad Basin Commission and Benin in Yaoundé on April 1st, 2016.
CRTV
- Details
- Elangwe Pauline
- Hits: 3028
- Details
- Boko Haram
Four individuals believed to originate from Nigeria were arrested in Minawao refugee camp, in the Far North of Cameroon over alleged links to Boko Haram, security sources told APA on Sunday.According to reports, the suspected Boko Haram fighters were arrested during a routine security check following a tip-off.
Although the identities of the quartet have not been revealed, Cameroon’s Ministry of Defence which confirmed the arrests, said they had participated in attacks inside Cameroon.
They reportedly entered Nigeria’s Minawao refugee camp as routine security checks were being conducted by the Cameroonian army.
They had sought refuge among the local population, before appearing as refugees.
The arrests should bring the Cameroonian authorities to redouble their vigilance, especially as this is not the first time refugee camps are being directly linked with terrorists.
A few days ago, the defense and security forces had confirmed that two suicide bombers who blew themselves up in Maroua were from this refugee camp.
- Details
- Elangwe Pauline
- Hits: 2679
- Details
- Boko Haram
The military campaign by Nigeria and neighboring nations to combat the West African militant group Boko Haram has been hampered by a failure among those countries to share crucial intelligence — sometimes even within their own security services, American and other Western officials say.
Western partners have balked as well. The Pentagon and American intelligence services have struggled at times to provide information quickly about Boko Haram militants to the African countries — Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria — without violating restrictions on what can be shared from spy satellite imagery or electronic eavesdropping within rules for not disclosing sources and methods.
Until recently, Western officials and analysts said, Britain and the United States provided only sanitized intelligence reports to the Nigerian military. The countries feared that more detailed information might be misused by an army that human rights groups say has committed abuses against civilians as it battled Boko Haram, which has pledged loyalty to the Islamic State.
And a new intelligence “fusion center,” created in Chad as part of a multinational task force, has only recently overcome budget and staffing shortfalls, as well as lingering mistrust among the participating countries, to help coordinate operations.
“The big unanswered question right now is how much are all those five countries that are participating going to collaborate and work effectively,” Col. Robert Wilson, who commands American Special Forces in North and West Africa, said in a recent interview here, noting that Boko Haram moves easily across borders. Benin recently became the fifth country to join the coalition.
Even within the West African countries, interior ministries often do not share information about terrorist threats with their military counterparts.
In Cameroon, an elite special operations unit, the Rapid Intervention Brigade originally trained and equipped by Israel, now gets training and equipment from United States Navy SEALs and intelligence not handed over to other branches and units of its security services, Western analysts said. “It’s a confused mess,” said J. Peter Pham, the director of the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center in Washington.
American military and counterterrorism officials say intelligence sharing is a difficult issue, particularly outside established alliances. The United States confronted its own shortcomings after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, when it became clear that the F.B.I. and C.I.A. each had information about the hijackers not shared with the other. In the wake of the Islamic State attacks in Paris and Brussels in the past year, the authorities in France and Belgium, as well as throughout Europe, are seeking to fill glaring gaps in intelligence sharing.
American intelligence and counterterrorism officials said it was a challenge to share sensitive intelligence with the West African allies fighting Boko Haram and other terrorist groups. The United States has different rules for what intelligence it shares with each country, and what one country can or cannot share with its neighbor — even though all are trying to fight a common regional enemy, Boko Haram.
“Because U.S. policy in Africa is for Africans to take the lead, a lot of the challenge is building trust among the partners themselves and not generating a dependence on what information we do have,” said Alice Hunt Friend, the Pentagon’s former principal director for African affairs.
American officials said progress was being made. Initially, it took up to two weeks to release information such as an aerial surveillance photo. Now, depending on the intelligence and the country, that is down to as little as an hour, American officials said. To help speed the release of information, American analysts are being encouraged to “write to release” — mostly meaning stripping information of sources and methods to ensure broader and faster distribution to partners without dumbing down the content. Drone photos provided by the United States recently helped the Nigerian Army avoid a major Boko Haram ambush.
Brig. Gen. Donald C. Bolduc, the top United States Special Operations commander for Africa, said that since Nigeria’s president, Muhammadu Buhari, instituted military reforms in recent months, “my guys are now coffee-breath close to our partners in the Lake Chad basin.”
“As a result,” General Bolduc said in an interview last week, “we have developed relationships of trust.”
Since taking office last year, Mr. Buhari has begun a major push to rid the country of Boko Haram, which has assaulted northeastern Nigeria for years. In past months, the group has spread across borders to terrorize the country’s neighbors, too.
The nations in the Lake Chad region that have become Boko Haram’s new stamping grounds — Niger, Chad and Cameroon — have long been distrustful of one another. Mr. Buhari met with their leaders one by one, shoring up support for a campaign to join forces to fight the group.
Military efforts have freed thousands of hostages of Boko Haram, most of them women and children. Yet the effort to press them for information about fighters appears inconsistent. In some instances the hostages, some of whom have been raped, are taken to camps where humanitarian groups spend time interviewing each about psychological problems that he or she may suffer. But it appears that no one is asking about the tactics and locations of fighters, alongside whom many have lived for months.
In contrast, in Borno State in Nigeria, the military has been detaining and screening nearly everyone held hostage by Boko Haram in an effort to collect information and determine whether the individual formed an allegiance with the militants. The detentions sometimes last months, and include even children. At the Minawao refugee camp outside Maroua, Cameroon, near a part of the country where Boko Haram has launched numerous attacks, residents said no one had inquired about the fighters.
There are examples of success. A young woman trained as a bomber near the border between Cameroon and Nigeria dropped her explosives and instead ran to the authorities in the village she had been sent to blow up. Her information led to a major operation that captured and killed numerous militants, officials said.
Col. Didier Badjeck, a spokesman for the Cameroon Defense Ministry, praised the emerging cooperation among the nations. One recent operation involved 500 soldiers from Cameroon and Nigeria, and guidance from the multinational task force in Chad.
In particular, he said, intelligence from Americans has been pivotal to carrying out operations. “They’ve given us very good information, and we can verify it,” he said. “And they also have given us information that we don’t have.” Colonel Badjeck added, “It’s the first time Americans have been this involved in West Africa.”
NYT
- Details
- Elangwe Pauline
- Hits: 3327
- Details
- Boko Haram
The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) today welcomed a contribution of nearly 15,000 metric tons of food, worth US$21 million or CFA 12 billion, from USAID’s Food for Peace Program to Cameroon. This food will bring vital support to 300,000 people−refugees, internally displaced people (IDPs) and vulnerable food insecure populations−over the next three months, just when they need it most, at the onset of the lean season.
“This much-needed food−rice, split peas, vegetable oil and super cereals−comes at a critical time as the Boko Haram crisis in the north and the Central African Republic (C.A.R.) refugee crisis in the east have generated increased needs and disrupted people’s lives in already fragile areas. It will help people cope over the next three months when they are most vulnerable as the lean season gets underway, and food insecurity worsens,” said Felix B.F. Gomez, WFP Country Director in Cameroon.
In addition to some 260,000 refugees from C.A.R. who have been taking shelter for the past few years in Cameroon’s eastern regions, the Boko Haram violence continues to uproot families from their homes, disrupt the economy, agriculture and cross-border trade in the north of the country. More than 200,000 people–Nigerian refugees and Cameroonians–have been displaced due to the Boko Haram violence; in the worst-affected areas along the border with Nigeria, 1.4 million people face hunger.
“Without this support from our long-standing partner, USAID, we would not be able to continue providing the food and nutrition assistance that people need to survive. It’s an essential contribution to stave off hunger among those who need help most over the next months, but we are concerned that without additional international support, WFP will not be able to maintain its assistance as of June/July to the refugee and IDP populations,” said Gomez.
USAID is the largest single donor to WFP’s emergency programmes in Cameroon, covering up to 25 percent of the food assistance costs in 2016, and has been one of WFP’s key supporters over the years.
While this substantial contribution enables WFP to continue its support for another three months, an additional US$36 million is needed to sustain assistance to vulnerable communities until the end of the year.
WFP is the world's largest humanitarian agency fighting hunger worldwide, delivering food assistance in emergencies and working with communities to improve nutrition and build resilience. Each year, WFP assists some 80 million people in around 80 countries.
WFP
- Details
- Elangwe Pauline
- Hits: 2681
- Details
- Boko Haram
The United States will give $40 million in humanitarian assistance to countries bordering Lake Chad fighting Islamist militant group Boko Haram, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power said on Tuesday.
The money was to help about seven million people affected by the insurgent group that has killed around 15,000 people. It takes total U.S. aid to the sub-region since 2014 to $237 million, she said.
Power was in the capital of Cameroon and met President Paul Biya and attended a ceremony to burn 2,000 tusks in a bid to end elephant poaching. The trip includes visits to Chad and Nigeria.
"We discussed the monstrous threat posed by Boko Haram and we agreed, and he was very forceful on this point, that the military response alone could not succeed in defeating Boko Haram in the long-term," she said of her meeting with Biya.
Respect for human rights, good governance, economic and forest development and a focus on civil society were essential components of the campaign, she said.
Cameroon, Nigeria and Chad are contributing forces to fight the group. Power has been scheduled to visit the region's Multinational Joint Task Force, which is staffed with troops from the three nations as well as Niger and Benin.
The United States has sent troops and drones and offered to send a special operations mission to the fight against Boko Haram, which has pledged allegiance to Islamic State.
On Monday, a vehicle in her motorcade that was carrying United Nations and Cameroonian officials struck a young boy. Medics in the convoy treated him but he died of his injuries.
"I joined the (Cameroonian) governor of the area ... the leading U.N. official who manages the humanitarian and development response and Ambassador Hoza, and we visited with the boy's family to offer our profound condolences," Power said in a speech.
Power also described meeting refugees and called for financial support from the international community to aid the development of areas battered by Boko Haram.
Reuters
- Details
- Elangwe Pauline
- Hits: 2868
