NIGERIA-VIOLENCE/CHAD/BUHARI-DEBY Nigeria's Buhari visits Chad to rally support for fight against Boko Haram

Record ID: 150211

  • Title: NIGERIA-VIOLENCE/CHAD/BUHARI-DEBY Nigeria's Buhari visits Chad to rally support for fight against Boko Haram
  • Date: 5th June 2015
  • Summary: N'DJAMENA, CHAD (JUNE 4, 2015) (REUTERS) ***WARNING CONTAINS FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY*** NIGERIAN PRESIDENT MUHAMMADU BUHARI (IN WHITE) AND CHAD'S PRESIDENT IDRISS DEBY (IN BLUE) ARRIVING FOR JOINT PRESS CONFERENCE BUHARI AND DEBY AT PODIUMS BUHARI DEBY (SOUNDBITE) (English) NIGERIAN PRESIDENT, MUHAMMADU BUHARI, SAYING: "Having got the support of Chad and Niger, especially, in go
  • Embargoed: 20th June 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Chad
  • Country: Chad
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA3PRVN8WKDWNE210MAOFBUKQ95
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari on Thursday (June 4) thanked Chad and Niger for their support in the fight against Boko Haram.
    Speaking at a joint news conference with Chad's President Idriss Deby in N'Djamena, Nigeria's new president said:
    "Having got the support of Chad and Niger, especially, in going into Nigeria rescuing part of the territory occupied by Boko Haram, and holding it, waiting for Nigerians to come and relieve them, I think they have made as much sacrifice as humanly possible to make sure that Boko Haram is adequately dealt with, with the shortest possible time."
    The statement came one day after Buhari declared that Nigeria's army would take a bigger role in the effort to crush Boko Haram by taking over from soldiers from Niger in occupying towns liberated from the Islamist militant group.
    Niger and Chad played a leading role earlier this year in driving the insurgents from towns in northeastern Nigeria including Malam Fatori and Damasak, in part because of the weakness of the Nigerian army.
    Buhari, who visited his counterparts in Niger and Chad on Wednesday (June 3) and Thursday to discuss the group, has vowed to defeat the militant Islamists.
    Chad's leader expressed his support for Nigeria's fight against Boko Haram.
    "The war imposed upon us by Boko Haram today prompts us to reaffirm our links of solidarity, integration against the security menace. I rejoice on the declaration by my brother, my friend Muhammadu Buhari, to bring to great attention the issue of terrorism, and to commit to mobilize all the means to overcome the Boko Haram sect," said Deby.
    On Thursday a bomb at a market in the town of Jimeta, northeastern Nigeria killed around 30 people, eyewitnesses told Reuters.
    The device, which an eyewitness said was planted in a three-wheeled motorized scooter inside the market in Adamawa state, was detonated around 1900 GMT, a few minutes after a female suicide killed two people at a checkpoint in Maiduguri.
    Nobody has claimed responsibility but the attacks bore the hallmarks of Boko Haram, the militant Islamist group that has waged a six-year insurgency in the northeast of Africa's biggest economy and top oil exporter in a bid to set up an Islamic state.
    The bombing is the latest attack in a series of explosions in the last few days that has killed around 80 people, following the inauguration of Buhari last week.
    At the start of the year Boko Haram controlled a swathe of territory around the size of Belgium, but the military says the group has been pushed back to the Sambisa forest in recent weeks, a claim which the group denied in a video aired on social media on Tuesday (June 2).
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