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Nigerian military defeats Boko Haram insurgents in restive northeast states: minister

Xinhua, July 21, 2016 Adjust font size:

The Nigerian military has defeated the Boko Haram fighters operating in restive northeast states, Minister of Interior Abdulrahman Dambazau said Wednesday.

Speaking at a two-day security seminar in southern city of Port Harcourt, Dambazau, a retired Army chief, said the government was now focused on rebuilding and relocating the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) to their respective communities and homes.

"The war in the North-East with the Boko Haram has been fought and won - as the Boko Haram elements have been routed, degraded and are being decimated," he told his audience.

"The task before us is winning the peace, as the victims are gradually returning to their homes, while government is rebuilding, reconciling, and rehabilitating the victims," said the minister, who was represented by Willy Bassey, a director in the Ministry.

He said the government was now focused on partnering with the media to ensure that information was properly managed.

According to him, Nigeria was currently faced with security challenges in form of cattle rustling, pastoralists and farmers clashes, militancy, kidnapping, cultism and secession agitations which required effective media management.

Dambazau said the ministry was currently formulating and implementing new policies to boost operations of five security outfits under the ministry.

Boko Haram has been blamed for scores of attacks on churches, mosques, schools and market places 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