Troops repel Boko Haram in Damaturu

Nigerian troops fought back Boko Haram insurgents at Gonar Bukar settlement on Gashua Road on the outskirts of Damaturu, the Yobe capital late on Sunday.

The spokesman of the army’s Operation Lafiya Dole, Capt. Njoka Irabor, who confirmed the development in an interview with our reporter in Damaturu, said the jihadists attempted to infiltrate Damaturu metropolis around 5:30 p.m.

He said that troops engaged the insurgents “with the timely arrival of air taskforce and that troops “are on top of the situation’’.

Irabor, an Acting Assistant Director, Army Public Relations, noted, however, that details of the encounter were still sketchy.

Nigerian troops have been locked in confrontations with Boko Haram since 2009 in an insurgency that has claimed up to 30,000 lives and displaced over two million people in Nigeria’s northeast, according to United Nations estimates.

The jihadists are fighting for enthronement of a strict Islamic code in Northern Nigeria but troops have decimated them in 10 years of relentless onslaught.