UNHCR: Nigerians flee to Cameroon, Niger as Boko Haram attack border towns

The conflict between Boko Haram and the Nigerian government is displacing thousands on both sides of the country’s border with Cameroon to the northeast and Niger to the north, the U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR) said on Tuesday.

Boko Haram has fought a six-year insurgency to carve out an Islamist state in northeast Nigeria, and is still carrying out cross-border attacks, in the face of a Nigerian military campaign bolstered by Niger, Cameroon and Chad.

At least 13 people were killed in a twin suicide attack by suspected militants in the Cameroonian border town of Fotokol on July 12. The volatile situation is pushing many people to leave the area, the UNHCR said.

Many of those moving south, away from the sites of recent attacks, are going to the Minawao camp in Cameroon, where around 100 people arrive each day, UNHCR spokesman Leo Dobbs told a news briefing in Geneva on Tuesday.

“This particular movement is people who fled earlier (…) and have been in the area for a while,” he said. “Life is difficult up in the border areas.”

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