PH
The state of emergency empowers the governor of the area to prohibit the movement of people and vehicles and to order searches of homes day and night, Communications Minister Hassan Sylla Bakari said.
“Boko Haram only remains a threat to the civilian population with suicide bombings always difficult to prevent,” Bakari said.
He said Boko Haram enjoyed the complicity of some inhabitants of the Lake Chad region, which borders Nigeria, where Boko Haram is based.
More than 5 000 soldiers have been deployed on islands and lakeside villages there.
In one of the most recent Boko Haram attacks in the country, at least 41 people died when suicide bombers attacked a weekly market in October in Baga Sola.
Boko Haram, which seeks to establish a state with its very strict interpretation of Islamic law, has killed thousands of people in northern Nigeria, Cameroon and Chad.
