Chad: 'Around 1,000 Boko Haram terrorists neutralized'

DAKAR, Senegal

The Chadian government announced Thursday that nearly 1,000 terrorists have been neutralized in the operation against the Boko Haram terrorist organization in the western part of the country.

Army spokesman Col. Azem Bermendoa Agouna told reporters that the Operation Bohoma Anger, launched on March 31 in the Lake Chad border region as well as in the area of Niger and Nigeria, ended on Wednesday.

Agouna said that 52 Chadian soldiers lost their lives in the operation, adding that all terrorists were forced out of the country.

He added that the part of the operation held in the territories of Niger and Nigeria will be taken over by the authorities in these countries.

As part of the operation, the Chadian army, which sent five army squads to cross-border areas, destroyed five bases belonging to the terror group in Niger and Nigeria.

On March 23, some 98 soldiers were killed in Boko Haram's hours-long attack on the Chadian troops in the Bohoma town of Lake Chad province. The attack also left many people wounded, including civilians.

Military forces from Chad, Cameroon, Nigeria and Niger have been struggling to root out Boko Haram from the Lake Chad region for more than five years.

Boko Haram launched a bloody insurgency in 2009 in northeastern Nigeria but later spread its atrocities to neighboring Niger, Chad and Cameroon, which prompted a military response.

More than 30,000 people have been killed, and nearly 3 million displaced in a decade of Boko Haram terror activities in Nigeria, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

The violence by Boko Haram has affected some 26 million people in the Lake Chad region, and displaced 2.6 million others, according to the UN Refugee Agency.

* Writing by Jeyhun Aliyev in Ankara