UN relief wing voices alarm at Boko Haram attacks on vulnerable people in Nigeria

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said Friday that it is alarmed by the reported terrorist attacks on vulnerable displaced people in two locations in Maiduguri, a city in northeastern Nigeria, that took place earlier in the day.

While the number of dead and injured among civilians is not yet clear, Boko Haram reportedly launched a major attack using guns and explosives targeting the Custom House site that hosts more than 9,000 internally displaced people and the Muna Garage Park area where displaced people have gathered to return to their homes, Farhan Haq, the deputy UN spokesman, said at a daily news briefing here.

"These are not the first attacks affecting the most vulnerable people in the area," Haq said.

"OCHA reminds all parties to the conflict in Nigeria to ensure the safety and security of all civilian populations as required under International Humanitarian Law and International Human Rights Law," he said.

In the incident near camp for displaced people in Maiduguri, as many as seven suicide bombers, six of them women, have blown themselves up while trying to attack the people there, reports said, adding that thousands of people living at the camp are especially vulnerable,

The seven-year armed campaign by the extremist group Boko Haram has killed 15,000 people and forced up to two million from their homes. Endit