Tens of thousands of people have fled a town in the troubled southeastern Niger following deadly attacks by Takfiri Boko Haram terrorist group, the UN refugee agency says. Adrian Edwards, the spokesman for United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), told reporters in Geneva on Tuesday that some 50,000 people fled the town of Bosso in the country’s troubled Diffa region near the Nigerian border.

The spokesman noted that most of those fleeing the violence walked toward the village of Toumour, which is located some 30 kilometers west of Bosso. “Many people are reportedly traumatized and worried about their safety,” he said. The UN sources say people are sleeping in the open and urgently need shelter and other assistance.

Boko Haram militants first took the town of Bosso on Friday in an attack in which 30 soldiers from Niger and two from Nigeria were killed. A total of 55 militants from the Nigeria-based militant group were also killed during the fierce fighting. The terrorists reportedly torched military barracks, police facilities and looted shops during the terror campaign in the town. The ambush and looting came as Niger’s army was preparing to attack Boko Haram in the Lake Chad region, which straddles Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad and Niger.

UN figures show that the violence by Boko Haram militants have displaced more than 240,000 people across the Diffa region over past months. The UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs recently said that more than nine million people living in the Lake Chad region are in dire need of food aid, blaming Boko Haram for triggering the unrest in the area.

Presstv

Unidentified gunmen have killed yet another journalist in the Somali capital city of Mogadishu, as acts of murder persist against members of the media in the conflict-ridden African country. Sagal Salad Osman, a presenter and producer for the state-run Radio Mogadishu station, was gunned down outside a university in Mogadishu’s northwestern neighborhood of Hodan. The assailants managed to flee the scene after the shooting, her colleagues said.

“Three men armed with pistols killed (her)… We heard gunfire and we rushed to the scene, the gunmen had already escaped,” Major Nur Ali, a police officer, said. “She was rushed to hospital but she died on the way. They killed her near a college campus where she studied. We believe al-Shabab is behind her killing,” he added, referring to the Takfiri militant group active in Somalia.

Ali Abdulkadir, who works at the Muqdisho radio station, said, “We are very much devastated about the news of her death and we don’t know why she was killed.” Last December, Hindiyo Haji Mohamed, a journalist for Radio Mogadishu and Somali National TV networks, sustained grave injuries when a bomb planted inside her car went off in Mogadishu. She later died of her injuries. Two men convicted of the act of terror were executed in April.

Presstv