Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari has confirmed that Abubakar Shekau, the leader of the Boko Haram Takfiri terrorist group, has been injured in an airstrike. “We learned that in an airstrike by the Nigeria air force he was wounded,” Buhari said in a statement on Sunday from the Kenyan capital Nairobi, where he is attending a development conference.

The Nigerian president also stated that Boko Haram militants are in disarray and the group no longer holds any territory in Nigeria. “Indeed their top hierarchy and lower cadre have a problem,” Buhari said, adding, “They are not holding any territory and they have split into small groups attacking soft targets.” Last week, Nigeria’s armed forces said Shekau was wounded in an airstrike on Boko Haram’s forest stronghold. The Nigerian army released no further statement or evidence confirming his condition.

Buhari, however, said he was prepared to talk with leaders of the militants to negotiate the release of 218 girls captured in 2014. Buhari said Shekau had been “edged out” of the group. In early August, the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group purportedly appointed a new leader for Boko Haram, its Nigeria-based affiliate.

According to Daesh-linked media, Abu Musab al-Barnawi, a former spokesman for Boko Haram, has replaced Shekau, who had been in charge since 2009. It was not clear why the change has taken place.

Shekau later released an audio message saying, “People should know we are still around,” apparently defying Daesh and the decision to oust him. Barnawi claimed his group remains “a force to be reckoned with,” adding that the fight would go on against West African countries. Boko Haram started a campaign of militancy in Nigeria in 2009 with the aim of toppling the central government.

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The UN children’s fund (UNICEF) says some 49,000 Nigerian children could die of malnutrition in the country’s troubled northeast this year if they are not provided with humanitarian aid.

According to a report published by UNICEF on Thursday, some 475,000 children around the Lake of Chad face “sever acute malnutrition” due to drought and the seven-year militancy by the Daesh-affiliated Boko Haram terror group in northeastern Nigeria.

The shallow Lake Chad, which is located on the southern edge of Sahara, borders Chad, Cameroon, Niger and Nigeria.

The report added that out of the nearly half a million children at risk, the Nigerian children, who live in the embattled Borno State, Boko Haram’s heartland, would lose their lives by the end of the year if they do not receive treatment and food.

It also appealed for $308 million to tackle the crisis, adding that, to date, it only received some $41 million, 13 percent of what it needed to help those affected in the four countries.

In the terror-torn Borno “towns and villages are in ruins and communities have no access to basic services,” UNICEF further said in the report, adding that nearly two thirds of hospitals and medical centers had been partially or totally destroyed. Three-quarters of water and facilities responsible for maintaining sanitation also needed rehabilitation, it added.

According to the report, some 2.2 million people are still trapped in the areas under the control of Boko Haram, despite counter-terror assaults against it. An estimated 20,000 people have been killed and more than 2.6 million others made homeless since the beginning of the Boko Haram bloody militancy in Nigeria in 2009.

The terror group has pledged allegiance to Daesh Takfiri terrorists, who are mainly wreaking havoc in Syria and Iraq. Boko Haram has spread its attacks from northeastern Nigeria, its traditional stronghold, to the neighboring countries of Chad, Niger and Cameroon. Regional countries have created a joint military force in helping Nigeria fight the terrorist group.

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The Nigerian Navy has commissioned 30 locally made and nine Sri Lankan gunboats into service, and unveiled an indigenous 38 metre long patrol vessel. The vessels were commissioned in Lagos on 17 August in a ceremony attended by Ministry of Defence Permanent Secretary Danjuma Sheni and Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Ibok Ete-Ibas, amongst others. The 30 gunboats, which are 8.2 metres long, were built by the Epenal Boat Yard in Port Harcourt. Officials said they would be used to patrol the Niger Delta. The vessels displayed last Wednesday appear to be armed with ST Kinetics 40AGL automatic grenade launchers.

Sheni said another 20 of the locally built gunboats would be delivered to the Nigerian Navy.  Ete-Ibas was reported by local media as saying that said the Epenal-built boats were an improvement on 30 others unveiled in Port Harcourt in February and featured modifications that improved sea-keeping, amongst others. He said the vessels contribute to Nigeria’s national security and prosperity and come at half the cost of acquiring vessels from overseas, something that is important as “mounting operational challenges in the face of [the] progressively dwindling economy necessitated the navy to explore more cost saving options through local construction of these patrol boats.”

Nine of the boats were earlier acquired second hand from Sri Lanka for $4.2 million. They were handed over on 6 May in a ceremony in Sri Lanka. According to the Sri Lankan Navy, six Arrow class boats and three Wave Rider class boats were handed over in what the Navy said was its first international defence sale. The 14.5 metre long and 3.5 metre wide inshore patrol craft are powered by two 350 HP engines. They are equipped with a radar system, GPS and electronic compass. The contract included training for Nigerian personnel in Sri Lanka.

In addition to the smaller gunboats, the Nigerian Navy will receive a locally built patrol boat, which was apparently also commissioned last week. NNS Karaduwa is the second Seaward Defence Boat to be built in Nigeria and is 38.9 metres long. In June 2012 the Nigerian Navy commissioned the NNS Andoni, Nigeria’s first locally built warship, into service, and laid the keel for the second Seaward Defence Boat. The 33 metre NNS Andoni had its keel laid at the Naval Dockyard in December 2007, with full construction beginning in January the following year.

Also seen at the Nigerian Naval Dockyard last week was the Ekpe-class patrol boat NNS Damisa and two of the three Combattante IIIB vessels, which were having work carried out at the dry dock. Several other vessels were also seen in Channels Television footage at the yard, including a Yola-class patrol boat.

Senate Committee Chairman on the Navy, Isa Aman-Isa, was reported by Nigeria’s National Daily Newspaper as saying “our plan is to increase the [naval] platforms with the hope that the force would get more from the loan from China-African relations of about $60 billion. In the 2017 budget, we have started making adequate provision for the navy to get more funding. By next year, the issue of Niger Delta Avengers would be a thing of the past.”

Last week the Nigerian government contracted Almarine, a division of John Holt Plc, to manufacture naval vessels, reports This Day. The company said it would manufacture gunboats, as well as ambulance boats, patrol boats and transport boats that may be needed by the Nigerian Navy.

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The Niger Delta Avengers (NDA), known for its attacks on Nigeria’s oil installations, has announced a ceasefire, saying it will support the notion of holding talks with the government in Abuja. The group said in a message on its website late Saturday that it would support efforts to negotiate with “the federal government of Nigeria, representatives from the home countries of all multinational oil corporations and neutral international mediators.” It said NDA would “observe a cessation of hostilities” and will honor its pledge “unless the ruling political APC (All Progressives Congress party) continues … to arrest, intimidate, invade and harass innocent citizens and invade especially Ijaw communities.”

The Ijaw ethnic people are the dominant militant group in the southern Niger Delta region. They have vowed to resume fighting if the current window for talks expires and the government fails to address their demands. “We promise to fight more for the Niger Delta, if this opportunity fails,” the NDA said in its message. Attacks on Nigeria’s oil pipeline and facilities have left a devastating impact on the African country’s economy. Reports say Abuja has lost a third of its oil income as a result of the militancy affecting its oil facilities.

The government blamed two such attacks on Friday on the DNA while a second group, identifying itself as the Niger Delta Greenland Justice Mandate (NDGJM), carried out another attack on the state-owned pipeline on the same day. The DNA has yet to comment on reports that it has been holding talks with government representatives in Abuja over the past weeks. The group has also refused to publicly support efforts by community figures from the Niger Delta region to resolve the conflict.

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The Takfiri Boko Haram militants have released a new video purportedly showing some of the girls who they kidnapped from the Nigerian town of Chibok in 2014.

In the footage released on Sunday, one of the militants claims that some of the girls are still alive, and the others were killed in airstrikes by the Nigerian air force on the Boko Haram compound.

“They should know that their children are still in our hands,” said a Boko Haram militant who appeared before rows of the schoolgirls in the 11-minute video, adding, “Some of them have died as a result of aerial bombardment.”

“There is a number of the girls, about 40 of them, that have been married,” the man said.

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The Nigerian military says 19 soldiers have gone missing after the Boko Haram Takfiri terrorist group ambushed military forces in the embattled northeastern province of Borno. On Thursday, “when our troops were returning to their defensive location, they ran into an ambush by the terrorists who came to reinforce their fleeing comrades. The troops fought back… killing many of them,” said Major-General Lucky Irabor, the military chief of staff, on Friday.

He went on to say that three officers and 16 soldiers were still missing, adding that another 16 soldiers and three pro-government civilian vigilantes sustained injuries in the incident. The development came three days after the army conducted a full-scale operation in the restive province, killing at least 42 terrorists and rescuing 42 children and 38 women kidnapped by Boko Haram in Gangere village. This also comes as military has reportedly rescued as many as 10,000 people form Boko Haram captivity this year.

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Nigeria’s military has rescued at least 80 children and women in an operation against the Boko Haram Takfiri terrorist group in the country’s troubled northeast. Army spokesperson Colonel Sani Kukasheka Usman said on Thursday that the captives were released on Tuesday by troops who attacked a gathering of the Boko Haram militants at Gangere village in Borno state.

The official added that the freed hostages included 42 children and 38 women. Usman noted that 42 terrorists were also killed during the high-scale offensive. This comes as military has reportedly freed as many as 10,000 hostages form the grips of the Boko Haram terrorists this year. The Takfiri terrorist group has kidnapped a large number of civilians, including several women over the past years.

On April 14, 2014, Boko Haram terrorists kidnapped 276 girls from their secondary school in the northeastern town of Chibok in Borno. Fifty-seven of the girls managed to escape afterwards, but the fate of the remaining others is still largely unknown.

That mass abduction of female students by the terrorist group has shocked people around the world and brought global attention to Boko Haram’s militancy.  Boko Haram started its campaign of militancy in 2009 with the aim of toppling the central government in Nigeria. It has so far taken the lives of more than 20,000 people and forced over 2.7 million others from their homes.

Boko Haram has expanded its terror activities to Nigeria’s neighboring countries. Troops from Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon and Niger have been battling the terrorists in recent months. The group has pledged allegiance to the Daesh Takfiri terrorists operating mainly in Syria and Iraq.

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