Hundreds of people from four villages near the devastated Nigerian town of Baga have been forced to flee after a warning from Boko Haram militants, witnesses and community leaders said Tuesday.

News of the exodus from Kekenu, Budur, Yoyo and Mile 90 villages came as Niger hosted a meeting on how to fight the rebels as concern mounted at the threat to regional security.

Boko Haram fighters attacked Baga on January 3, looting and burning down homes and businesses in the town and at least 16 surrounding villages on the shores of Lake Chad.

Hundreds of people, if not more, are feared to have been killed, although there is no official confirmation of the toll as the town is still in rebel hands, residents said.

Security analysts said the attack, in which a regional military base was captured, potentially puts the group in a strong strategic position to strike southwards and launch cross-border attacks.

Lake Chad forms the border between Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Cameroon and tens of thousands of people have streamed across the frontiers seeking sanctuary from the relentless violence.

- Empty villages -

Abubakar Gamandi, head of the Borno State fishermen's union, said residents from the affected villages told him Boko Haram fighters had visited "and asked people to leave -- or else".

One women who fled Baga to the Borno State capital, Maiduguri, on Monday confirmed that she joined the crowds fleeing the four villages.

"When we came to Mile 90, we found it almost empty with some remaining residents staying behind to pick up personal belongings," said Ma'agana Butari.

"We also found Budur, Kekenu and Yoyo deserted and we caught up with some of the residents moving towards Monguno," the 32-year-old mother of five said by telephone from Maiduguri.

The villages lie some 40 kilometres (25 miles) south of Baga and although there was no confirmation that Boko Haram had moved in, it will likely raise fears that the group plans to push south.

Boko Haram, which is fighting for a hardline Islamic state in northeast Nigeria was founded in Maiduguri in 2002 but was driven out in 2013 after a state of emergency was declared.

The city has in recent weeks been hit by a wave of suicide bombings.


- Regional threat -


In Niger's capital, Niamey, the country's foreign minister, Mohamed Bazoum, said the rise in strength of Boko Haram "reflects our slowness and our inability to put up a robust response".

Chadian troops deployed last weekend to help Cameroon repel Boko Haram attacks in its far north region in a sign of the growing recognition of the wider threat posed by the group.

Ghana's President, John Dramani Mahama, has also raised the possibility of a larger regional force, possibly under the auspices of the African Union, to prevent the spread of violence.

Both Butari and another woman, Aisa Aribe, who arrived in Maiduguri from Baga on Monday, said Boko Haram were still in control of the town and the streets were strewn with the dead.

"Dead bodies are all over the town and surrounding villages. They are decomposing and there is no one to bury them," said Aribe.

The pair said they were among hundreds of women held by the group, initially in a girls' boarding school and at the home of a local senator.

"They later separated the young women and beautiful ones and took them to a different location," said Butari.

"They told the rest of us that we had the choice to either stay or leave and join 'infidels' in Monguno (65 kilometres away where many Baga residents fled) and Maiduguri.

"They derisively told us we better stay with them because we have nowhere to go since they ‎killed all our husbands."



http://news.yahoo.com/hundreds-flee-nigeria-villages-boko-haram-warning-141511192.html

When your DSS is busy trying to find out the actual blackmail to use against the APC whether to use the new "alleged hacking into INEC's database" or stick with their initial "cloning of Permanent Voter Card"

what you will have is an Agency setup to function like the FBI, MI6 and old KGB losing its focus and essence and deeply involved with politics rather than Intelligence Gathering.

We have a Nigerian Air Force, Nigerian Navy, Nigerian Army and so many paramilitary agencies and some ragtag terrorists will hold the Nation to ransom for 5years running and yet we as a country cant fathom how to infiltrate, disorient and plant moles in the Group.

We cant block their source of weaponry nor stop their mobility and confine them to an enclave and take on them.

Can this Nigeria, without external support, bake her own bread, sew her own garments, drill her own oil, produce
her own cars, fly her own planes, design her own cities and,
fight her own wars? What can this Nigeria do? Or does
development come through stages and Nigeria,
unfortunately, still occupies a learning stage?

Reading d news 1st

Do you ever wonder why bokoharam has never interfered with the on going campaigns despite the high security risk in the north?

Trailblazer1:
Do you ever wonder why bokoharam has never interfered with the on going campaigns despite the high security risk in the north?

Guess JONATAN told them he will be in the North N directed Ali Modu Sheriff to phone Shekau to keep the bombs till his campaign train leaves the North.

It's obvious we will need massive military intervention to end Boko Haram insurgency, just watched the video released by Shekau and the massive bounty they got from the Nigerian Military in Baga.

Is the GEJ government arming Shekau for a sinister agenda or how do one justify an army leaving such massive haul of military hardware for terrorists to come pack? What happened to blowing them up even if they were in hurry to run away as they do always.

Same was done in mubi, obi askira and other armoury of the Nigerian Army that BH raided. What kind of Army leaves weapons to its enemies without destroying them if they can't move them out.

Something isn't adding up and my thought is pointing at senior military commanders doing the bidding of the presidency.