JTF captures wounded Boko Haram insurgents (photo)

The Defence Headquarters yesterday said soldiers of the Multi-National Joint Task Force have arrested unspecified number of Boko Haram attackers who had been wounded in the course of the renewed bombardments of their camps by the military.

A statement by the Director of Defence Information, Maj.-Gen. Chris Olukolade, said the "captured terrorists" had also made useful information concerning their involvements in the insurgency in the North-East of the country while equally pleading for forgiveness.

The statement read in part, "Scores of wounded terrorists who escaped from various camps under the fire of security forces have been captured in the fringes of Lake Chad. The captured terrorists some of whom are fatally wounded are already making useful statements to interrogators of the Multi-National Joint Task Force. Others were captured by troops in locations around Dikwa, Cross Kauwa, Kukawa and Alargarmo.

"In their confessions, it was revealed that some of the camps have been disbanded following the directive of their clerics who declared that the operation of the sect had come to an end as the mission could no longer be sustained. The terrorists who are giving useful information as to the locations of their remnant forces, are full of apologies and pleas for their lives to be spared promising to cooperate."

The statement added that the captured terrorists said starvation had made their violent campaigns difficult while the wounded members of the sect could no longer access medical attention. It said, "They confirmed that starvation was a major problem in addition to ceaseless bombardments on
the camp locations even when they kept relocating. They also confirm that several members of the group have been wounded and no treatment was forth coming. Troops have continued their assault on other locations across the states covered by the state of emergency."

The Defence Headquarters warned members of the public, who had cultivated the habit of sight-seeing in the camps, where the insurgents had recently been dislodged, to desist from such act. "Members of the public, who have started visiting to engage in sight seeing in some dislodged camps and fringes of forests such as Sambisa and others have been warned to desist from doing so as the tendency will no more be condoned where operations are still ongoing," it added.