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Fleeing Boko Haram fighters relocate to central Nigerian state: governor

Xinhua, February 22, 2017 Adjust font size:

Members of the terror group Boko Haram who fled their former base in Nigeria's northeast region due to mop up operations by the country's security forces are relocating to the central region, governor of Kogi State Yahaya Bello said Tuesday.

Bello, while addressing a national security seminar in Abuja, the nation's capital, said some high-profile members of Boko Haram had been identified in Kogi.

"I want to tell them that they have chosen a wrong place to relocate because we will never allow them," the official said.

The Boko Haram insurgency has been blamed for more than 20,000 deaths and displacement of 2.3 million people since 2009.

Nigeria has made a considerable gain on the Boko Haram front, with its security forces operating in the restive region dislodging Boko Haram fighters from the Sambisa Forest, the group's largest training camp in the country, last December.

The security forces are intensifying aerial and ground patrol in the country's northeast, extending their offensive mission around the Green Belt Region near Niger and Chad.

Bello said the Kogi State government will work together with the Nigerian armed forces to consolidate on the victory and gains recorded in the northeast. Endit