Niger’s army is fighting to recapture an island in Lake Chad after it was seized by hundreds of Boko Haram militants aboard motorised canoes, army sources said on Sunday. Boko Haram, hardline Islamists who want to establish a caliphate in the region, attacked the island of Karamga at dawn on Saturday, their second attempt to capture it since February, army and government sources said. Lake Chad’s islands, which lie in dense swampland, are an ideal base for mounting surprise attacks on the countries bordering the lake: Chad, Cameroon, Niger and Nigeria. “There were many (Niger soldiers) dead on Saturday, considerably more than in the first attack,” said one of the army sources, referring to a battle in February in which seven Niger soldiers died.
Comments