Britain and the United States on Friday said Boko Haram was preparing to kidnap foreigners in remote northeast Nigeria, which is in the grip of a food crisis caused by the conflict.<\/p>\n
The Foreign Office in London said it had received reports the Islamist militants were \u201cactively planning\u201d to seize foreign workers in the Bama local government area of Borno state.<\/p>\n
Both said in travel advice that the affected area was \u201calong the Banki-Kumshe axis\u201d, which is near the border with Cameroon.<\/p>\n
The US embassy in Abuja said in a message to its nationals that the report was \u201ccredible\u201d.<\/p>\n
Boko Haram has kidnapped thousands of women and children, including more than 200 schoolgirls from the Borno town of Chibok in 2014, which brought the conflict to world attention.<\/p>\n
At least 20,000 people have been killed since 2009. But abductions of foreigners have been rare.<\/p>\n
There was a spate of kidnappings of foreign workers in the wider north from 2011 to 2013, claimed by a Boko Haram splinter group, Ansaru, which was more ideologically aligned to Al-Qaeda.<\/p>\n
The leader of Ansaru, Khalid al-Barnawi, has been charged with the abduction and murder of foreign workers, among them an Italian, a Briton, a German, Greek, Lebanese and Syrians.<\/p>\n
Most were engineers or construction workers.<\/p>\n
International aid workers now account for the majority of foreign nationals in northeast Nigeria. Most are based in the Borno state capital, Maiduguri.<\/p>\n
Hundreds of thousands of people in the Lake Chad region require urgent food aid as a result of the conflict, which has made more than 2.6 million people homeless and ravaged farmland.<\/p>\n
AFP visited Banki with other international media two weeks ago.<\/p>\n
Humanitarian agencies operating in the town include the World Food Programme, International Organization for Migration and other UN bodies.<\/p>\n
Banki was liberated from Boko Haram in September 2015 and is currently home to some 32,000 displaced people in a sprawling, overcrowded camp.<\/p>\n
The surrounding area still suffers from frequent Boko Haram attacks on military convoys, as well as suicide bombings.<\/p>\n
Fighters loyal to Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau, who were pushed out of their camps in the Sambisa Forest area last December, are believed to be responsible.<\/p>\n
The kidnap warning and the threat to humanitarian operations underlines the fragility of security in northeast Nigeria, despite claims from the government and military that Boko Haram is a spent force.
\n–<\/p>\n
Source: AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Britain and the United States on Friday said Boko Haram was preparing to kidnap foreigners in remote northeast Nigeria, which is in the grip of a food crisis caused by the conflict. The Foreign Office in London said it had received reports the Islamist militants were \u201cactively planning\u201d to seize foreign workers in the Bama […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":316950,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[107],"tags":[5225,751],"yoast_head":"\n