800 Troops to Dispatch from Benin to Fight Boko Haram
KABUL: (Middle East Press) Thomas Boni Yayi, Benin’s President announced that nearly 800 troops will be conducted to join a new multinational task force to fight against Boko Haram rebels after meeting with his Nigerian counterpart Muhammadu Buhari Saturday.
Buhari, who was sworn in on May 29, is facing a particularly deadly surge of Islamist violence at home, with more than 800 people killed in north-eastern Nigeria in the last two months.
The violence has spread to neighbours Chad and Cameroon, both of whom have faced an unprecedented wave of suicide bombings on their soil in recent weeks.
After a visit to Cameroon earlier this week to discuss the fight against the Islamist group, Buhari was in Cotonou to attend celebrations marking Benin’s 55 years of independence.
Boni Yayi told reporters that his country will show “solidarity” with its “brothers in arms” in the region by sending “a contingent of 800 men … to permanently combat these outlaws.”
In a bid to confront the threat posed by Boko Haram militants in West Africa, the Nigerian president announced last month the establishment of the multinational task force, including soldiers from Nigeria, Cameroon, Niger and Chad as well as Benin.
Boko Haram, the extremist group, whose name roughly translates as “Western education is forbidden”, has carried on its campaign of attacks on security forces, suicide bombings and bloody raids on villages across Nigeria’s north and eastern borders despite the military campaign against them.
