Boko Haram attacks leave 1,4 mln children displaced: UNICEFSeptember 18, 2015 - 10:57 AMT PanARMENIAN.Net - The number of children forced to flee Boko Haram's insurgency in Nigeria and neighboring countries has reached 1.4 million, the U.N. children agency UNICEF said on Friday, September 18, according to Reuters. Around 500,000 were displaced in the last five months after a sharp rise in attacks by the Islamist jihadi group, it said. The militants have been waging a six-year insurrection to establish an Islamist state in the northeast of Nigeria that has killed thousands and displaced 2.1 million people, most of whom are children. "In northern Nigeria alone, nearly 1.2 million children – over half of them under 5 years old – have been forced to flee their homes. An additional 265,000 children have been uprooted in Cameroon, Chad and Niger," UNICEF said in a statement. Now heavily splintered, Boko Haram factions have reverted to guerrilla tactics, raiding villages for supplies and bombing soft targets like places of worships, markets and bus stations. The largest concentration of internally displaced persons (IDPs) and therefore children are in camps or host communities in Borno state capital Maiduguri, the birthplace of the insurgency. While the army has freed the last few towns still under some form of Boko Haram control, IDPs are reluctant to return home. Top stories Authorities said a total of 192 Azerbaijani troops were killed and 511 were wounded during Azerbaijan’s offensive. In 2023, the Azerbaijani government will increase the country’s defense budget by more than 1.1 billion manats ($650 million). The bill, published on Monday, is designed to "eliminate the shortcomings of an unreasonably broad interpretation of the key concept of "compatriot". The earthquake caused a temporary blackout, damaged many buildings and closed a number of rural roads. Partner news | Russia warns Armenia against “falling into West’s trap” Zakharova maintained, however, that anything that will benefit the people of Armenia can only be welcomed. CSTO: Armenia has not participated in secretariat’s work recently Recently Armenia has not participated in the work of the secretariat of the CSTO, Imangali Tasmagambetov said. Meeting with U.S., EU not against third parties, says Armenia The meeting scheduled for April 5 is dedicated to strengthening of the Armenia-EU-US cooperation, Yerevan added. Ucom launches network modernization efforts in few regions of Armenia In particular, on March 28, the legacy Mobile Switching Subsystem will be replaced with a new one. |