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U.S. condemns terror attacks in Lake Chad region

Xinhua, December 5, 2015 Adjust font size:

The U.S. government has condemned the recent Boko Haram suicide bombings and attacks in Niger, Nigeria and Cameroon.

The Africa Media Hub of the U.S. Department of State in a statement issued on Friday in Lagos by the department's deputy spokesperson, Mark Toner, described the attacks as senseless and callous.

"Through these senseless acts of brutality, Boko Haram terrorists are depriving the people of the Lake Chad Basin region of their fundamental right to live in peace and security," the statement said.

It expressed the government's continued support for the government and people of the Lake Chad Basin region in fighting Boko Haram extremism.

It added that the U.S. would support them with the provision of advisers, intelligence, training and logistics to aid their fight against insurgency.

The statement also restated the government's commitment to providing humanitarian support to the internally displaced in the region.

"We remain committed to this effort through a number of security and counter terrorism assistance programs, including providing advisers, intelligence, training, logistical support," it added.

"We will also continue to provide critical humanitarian support to those who have been internally displaced because of Boko Haram's senseless acts of terror," the statement said.

Activities by Boko Haram in the Lake Chad basin and counter-insurgency operations have displaced more than 2.5 million people in Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad and Niger, a top UN official said in November.

At the same time, about 1,100 schools were destroyed this year by Boko Haram in the Lake Chad region, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters.

Boko Haram has been blamed for scores of attacks on schools and universities in an insurgency that has killed at least 17,000 people since 2009.

The armed group made international headlines in April 2014 when its members kidnapped 276 schoolgirls from a school in Chibok, a town in Borno State, Nigeria. Fifty-three of the school girls escaped but the rest remained missing.

The violence has hit women and children particularly hard as they are being abducted, raped and trafficked, forced to work as lookouts and used as suicide bombers, according to the UN humanitarian relief agency, known as the OCHA. Endit