UN Security Council to be alerted on Boko Haram atrocities

The Head of UN Regional Office for Central Africa wants the international community to increase assistance.

The Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General and Head of the UN Regional Office for Central Africa (UNOCA), Abdoulaye Bathily in a press release, has expressed the deep concern of the United Nations Organisation (UNO) about the impact of Boko Haram activities in some countries of the Central African sub-region, namely Chad and Cameroon, that are neighbours of Nigeria, the base of the terrorist group led by Abubakar Shekau.

He expressed concern particularly for Cameroon that suffer recurrent Boko Haram attacks in the Far North Region, epitomized by abductions and deaths. “These criminal acts affecting civilians and military elements as well as the recruitment of young people by the terrorist group are intolerable”, Bathily said. He dispatched an assessment mission to Cameroon in October and his reaction followed reports on the developments of the situation in the region.

"We will alert the Security Council on the seriousness of the reality on the ground. The countries concerned need support to meet the challenges they face in the fight against Boko Haram”, Bathily said.

He called for the immediate cessation of activities of the terrorist group and appealed to the international community to increase its assistance to Nigerian refugees flowing into the northern part of Cameroon following the incursions of Boko Haram. "If nothing is done fast enough, a serious humanitarian crisis might occur," he warned. Reports talk of the precarious conditions of more than 17,000 persons settled in a refugee camp at Minawao, in the Far North Region of Cameroon.

Abdoulaye Bathily stated the determination of the United Nations to continue to work with Cameroonian government, as well as regional and international actors to end the atrocities of Boko Haram that is also a threat to Chad. He further disclosed that Boko Haram was last May added to the black list of terrorist organisations subject to sanctions by the UN Security Council.

The United Nations Regional Office for Central Africa supports and encourages the ongoing efforts to strengthen cooperation between States of the region and develop a regional policy based on the Global Counter-terrorism Strategy adopted by the United Nations in 2006. As such, the UN strongly supports the formation of the Multinational Joint force by Nigeria, Cameroon, Niger, Chad and Benin to be composed of 700 troops as part of a wider strategy to fight Boko Haram.