adminAccra – Central and West African states will hold a summit next month to agree a common strategy to combat the Boko Haram insurgency, their leaders said yesterday. Armies from Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad and Niger have launched an offensive to end the Islamic militant group’s six-year campaign, which has killed thousands in northern Nigeria and spilled over into Cameroon and Niger.
Ghana’s president John Dramani Mahama and his Chadian counterpart Idriss Deby said in Accra that the 7-8 summit, for which the host country has yet to be chosen, was needed to sustain the regional offensive.
Mahama chairs the West African regional bloc Ecowas, while Deby heads the Economic Community of Central African States (Eccas). “Single-handedly, no country can overcome this threat and therefore through pooling our resources together . . . we are going to overcome this challenge,” Deby said.
Meanwhile, soldiers from Niger and Chad have taken the Nigerian town of Damasak from Boko Haram, another victory in a regional campaign to wrest back control of swaths of northeastern Nigeria from the armed group.
Damasak, a few kilometres over the border from Niger, was taken from Boko Haram’s control over the weekend, a spokesman for Niger’s army, Colonel Michel Ledru, said yesterday. In heavy fighting, 228 rebel fighters were killed and one soldier from Niger died, Ledru said. Vehicles and motor cycles riddled with bullets littered the streets.
An AP photographer in the north-eastern town said it was largely deserted of civilians.
Four people, including an old man, came onto the street to wave at a convoy among 2,000 troops from Niger and Chad in the town. There were still signs of the town’s occupation by the rebels. Their writings were scrawled on every wall and the groups’ black and white flag still flew above some buildings.
A group of Chadian troops transferred weapons confiscated from Boko Haram into a pick-up truck truck. They were then taken to helicopters for transport to Niger. The weapons included AK47 assault rifles and 50-calibre guns, rocket-propelled grenades and mortar shells.
The Nigerian armed group seized Damasak with little resistance on November 24, when residents reported that the rebels drove in flinging and improvised explosive devices. Boko Haram has been fighting a six-year insurgency to create an Islamic state and had taken control of large parts of Nigeria’s northeast during the past year. – AP
Online Reporter