GENEVA (Reuters) - A fire killed at least eight people and left 15,000 others without shelter after raging through a northeast Nigerian camp for people displaced by a war against Islamist insurgents, aid group Norwegian Refugee Council said on Saturday.

Northeast Nigeria is ground zero for one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, sparked by a now decade-long conflict with Boko Haram and its splinter group Islamic State West Africa Province.

Roughly 2 million people have been displaced by the war, often living in squalid camps with little food, shelter or medicine.

“The source of the fire was a spark from a cooking stove, used by a child preparing her food,” Norwegian Refugee Council said on Twitter, describing the disaster in the town of Gajiram in Borno, the state worst hit by the conflict.

“Immediately, the family shelter, made of dry vegetation, was ablaze...The survivors of the fire are now left without shelters & clean water to drink & cook. They are dispersed, desperately seeking shelters under trees or under the direct sunlight.”

Some 6,000 children and more than 4,000 pregnant and nursing women were among those affected, it added.

In recent weeks, Nigerian and Chadian forces have launched an offensive against Islamic State’s Lake Chad stronghold after being on the back for much of 2018 and early 2019.

The Nigerian military has said it has killed dozens of insurgent fighters. Reuters has been unable to verify the figures.

Many aid groups expect the humanitarian crisis to last years. </s> Kano - At least four suicide blasts rocked a camp for migrants fleeing Boko Haram insurgents in restive northeastern Nigeria on Wednesday, killing at least three people and wounding 20, officials said.

The bombings triggered fires which burned down tents in the vast Muna camp on the outskirts of the city of Maiduguri, camp coordinator Tijjani Lumani told AFP.

"There were four explosions inside the camp. The bombers struck at different locations around 04:30," he said.

Emergency services put the number of bombings at five.

"A total of five suicide bombers, all male adults, were involved in the incidents, killing three persons," Abdulkadir Ibrahim of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) in the region told AFP.

He said 20 people were wounded and taken to hospital.

The police said four people were killed while eight were injured.

Muna camp is home to tens of thousands of people who have fled the Boko Haram insurgency.

The Islamist group has continued to target internally displaced people and there have been several attempted suicide bomb attacks near the Muna camp, which is not fenced off and is easily accessible.

Aid workers said last week that the camp residents are facing a severe lack of water, compounding widespread food shortages and security fears.

"The camp is vulnerable and this worries every one of us in the camp which is the last settlement on the outskirts of the city from the north," said Lumani.



"We are the first settlement one reaches on entering the city. And the fact that several suicide attacks have occurred near the camp in recent months adds to our unease," he added.

"We are vulnerable to Boko Haram. They can strike in the camp at anytime. All the suicide bombers who attacked the Muna garage just across the road from the camp and surrounding areas came in through the city gate only hundreds of metres from the camp."

Wednesday's blasts were the latest blamed on suicide bombers, who continue to pose a threat to civilians despite military claims of success against Boko Haram.

Four people were killed on Saturday when suicide bombers blew themselves up in a village near the city.

The Borno state capital of Maiduguri is the birthplace of Boko Haram, a radical Islamist group that has killed over 20 000 people and forced 2.6 million from their homes since taking up arms against the Nigerian government in 2009.

The violence has triggered a dire humanitarian crisis in northeast Nigeria and the wider Lake Chad region, which has also been hit by the conflict.

Nigerian troops, with the help of regional forces from Cameroon, Chad and Niger, as well as Benin, have since early 2015 managed to claw back most of the territory lost to Boko Haram in 2014.

Boko Haram's elusive leader Abubakar Shekau made his first appearance in months earlier this month, claiming responsibility for a spate of suicide bombings. </s> An estimated 30,000 Nigerians fled a town in their West African nation over the weekend in search of safety in neighboring Cameroon, according to the United Nations refugee agency. They fled the northeast border town of Rann amid mounting violence from a Boko Haram insurgency.

"With more 250,000 children, women and men already uprooted from northeast Nigeria, surging militant attacks are targeting civilians and forcing thousands more to run for their lives each day," the refugee agency, UNHCR, said Tuesday.

The Associated Press reports that refugees started escaping to Cameroon several weeks ago when Boko Haram captured Rann, which was hosting people who were internally displaced by the Boko Haram conflict, according to Amnesty International. the town is located in Nigeria's Borno state, where more than 80,000 people have sought refuge in towns and camps as violence in the region has escalated, UNHCR said.

Thousands have also recently fled to Chad.

UNHCR said $848 million is needed to provide basics like water and shelter to the most vulnerable people inside Nigeria. It is also seeking $135 million to help displaced people across the Lake Chad Basin region, where nearly 2.4 million people in total have been displaced due to Boko Haram's insurgency, which started in 2009 in Nigeria.

"Although the Nigerian military has regained control in parts of the country's north-east, civilians in Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad and Niger continue to be affected by grave violations of human rights, widespread sexual and gender-based violence, forced recruitment and suicide bombings," UNHCR said.

Amnesty International's Nigeria director said earlier this month that the situation in Rann "shows how vulnerable internally displaced persons are in Nigeria and the need to do more to protect them." </s> KANO, Nigeria: Suicide bomb blasts rocked a camp for migrants who have fled Boko Haram insurgents near Nigeria’s restive northeastern city of Maiduguri early Wednesday, officials said.

“There were four explosions inside the camp,” the coordinator of the Muna camp Tijjani Lumani told Agence France-Presse. “The bombers struck at different locations around 4:30 am.

“The explosions triggered fires which burned down many tents”, he said, adding that casualties details were not known.

“There were some suicide explosions in Muna camp. Our men have mobilised to the scene,” Ibrahim Abduljkadir of the National Emergency Management Agency in the region told Agence France-Presse.

Muna camp, on the edge of Maiduguri, is currently home to tens of thousands of people who have fled Boko Haram.

The Islamist insurgency has killed at least 20,000 people and forced more than 2.6 million others from their homes since it began in northeast Nigeria in 2009.

Boko Haram has continued to target the internally displaced people (IDPs) and there have been several attempted suicide bomb attacks near Muna camp, which is not fenced off and is easily accessible.

Aid workers said last week that the Muna camp residents are facing a severe lack of water, compounding widespread food shortages and security fears. AFP </s> People stand amid the damage at a camp for displaced people after an attack by suspected members of the Islamist Boko Haram insurgency in Dalori, Nigeria November 1, 2018. REUTERS/Kolawole Adewale

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (Reuters) - Suspected members of the Islamist Boko Haram insurgency killed at least 15 people in an attack on a group of villages in northeast Nigeria late on Wednesday, residents told Reuters.

The villages lie on the outskirts of the militarized city of Maiduguri, the heart of government in the northeast and the headquarters of efforts to defeat Boko Haram and the related Islamic State in West Africa (ISWA) insurgency. The conflict has lasted almost a decade.

Despite the Nigerian government’s statements since late 2015 that Boko Haram has been largely defeated, the militancy is still able to attack in and around Maiduguri and throughout much of the northeast.

In the village of Kofa, a Reuters reporter counted five bodies burned inside the remains of their house. A village chief in nearby Dalori said one person in the camp for displaced people had been killed, while two residents of Bulabrin said nine people had died there.

Nigeria’s military said in a statement one civilian was found dead, after Boko Haram had ransacked Dalori’s market, setting buildings ablaze and fleeing when soldiers approached. </s> At least 12 civilians were killed in multiple Boko Haram jihadist attacks targeting two villages and a camp for those displaced by the bloody conflict in northeastern Nigeria, civilian militia and residents told AFP Thursday.

Jihadists in seven trucks late on Wednesday attacked Bulaburin and Kofa villages as well as a camp in Dalori village outside the Borno state capital of Maiduguri.

"The terrorists attacked and completely burnt Bulaburin and Kofa villages and burnt half the Dalori two IDP (internally displaced persons) camp," militia leader Babakura Kolo told AFP.

"They killed nine people in Bulaburin, two people in Dalori, and one in Kofa and looted food supplies before setting them on fire," Kolo said.

The attack was launched in Kofa where the jihadists opened fire indiscriminately and killed one person as residents fled, said Kofa resident Musa Goni.

"They then moved to nearby Bulaburin where they gunned down nine people and burnt the village after stealing food," Goni said.

At Dalori 2 IDP camp, which houses 10,000 homeless people, the jihadists engaged troops and civilian militia guarding the camp in a shootout before overrunning the makeshift facility, civilian militia camp member Solomon Adamu said.

"When the Boko Haram gunmen came they stopped on the road overlooking the camp and started firing," said Adamu who took part in the fight.

"Soldiers and civilian JTF (militia) at the gate engaged them in gunfight but were forced to withdraw into the camp because we were out gunned," he said.

Residents were forced to flee nd two were killed while several were injured, according to Adamu.

The jihadists invaded the camp after overrunning troops and the militia and "burnt half the camp" by setting fires and firing rocket-propelled grenades on buildings.

"One grenade didn't explode and is still lying in the camp, waiting for bomb disposal units to evacuate it," Adamu said.

The area has been attacked multiple times before by the Boko Haram faction loyal to Abubakar Shekau.

Dalori, which is about 15 kilometres (nine miles) from Maiduguri, houses about 50,000 people in makeshift camps.

In June 2017, two female suicide bombers blew themselves up at the camp. The attack injured several residents but killed only the bombers.

It followed a separate attack at nearby Kofa village, where female suicide bombers exploded and killed at least 16 people.

In January 2016, at least 85 people were killed when militant fighters stormed and torched Dalori village and tried to gain access to the camps.

Despite government insistence that Boko Haram jihadists are near defeat, Nigeria is still hit by heavy fighting.

The conflict has claimed more than 27,000 lives since 2009 and nearly two million people still cannot return to their homes in the Lake Chad region.

In recent months, Boko Haram has carried out major attacks on military targets, killing dozens. </s> More than 100 people were killed and around 200 wounded after a Nigerian Air Force fighter jet mistakenly bombed a refugee camp during an operation against extremist group Boko Haram on Tuesday, AP reported. Military commander Major General Lucky Irabor acknowledged the incident that occurred in the town of Rann while President Muhammadu Buhari expressed his sadness over “this regrettable operational mistake” and said that assistance would be offered to the state.

The government, however, has not released an official toll of the victims yet. Nigerian military spokesperson General Rabe Abubakar said the incident was never intended. “However, in a military operation such as this, from time to time these things do occur,” BBC quoted him as saying.

Doctors without borders said at least 52 people were killed in the attack in Rann, which is along the border with Cameroon. The International Red Cross in Africa said that six of its workers were killed in the incident. “The safety of civilians must be respected. We are urgently calling on all parties to ensure the facilitation of medical evacuations by air or road for survivors who are in need of emergency care,” Doctors without Borders director of operations Dr Jean-Clément Cabrol said.

In the past, villagers had accused the country’s armed forces of killing civilians during military operations.

Founded in 2002, Boko Haram has launched several operations killing scores of people as part of its mission to make Nigeria an Islamic state. More than 20,000 people have been killed during the group’s attacks, while around 26 lakh people have been displaced. The United Nations has described the situation as the worst crisis in the continent and warned that 51 lakh people risk starvation, AP reported. </s> MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (AP) — A Nigerian air force fighter jet on a mission against Boko Haram extremists mistakenly bombed a refugee camp on Tuesday, killing more than 100 refugees and aid workers and wounding 200, a government official and doctors said.

Military commander Maj. Gen. Lucky Irabor confirmed an accidental bombardment in the northeastern town of Rann, near the border with Cameroon, saying “some” civilians were killed.

It was believed to be the first time Nigeria’s military has acknowledged making such a mistake in a region where villagers have in the past reported civilian casualties in the near-daily bombings targeting the Islamic militants.

A Borno state government official, who was helping to coordinate the evacuation of wounded from the remote area by helicopters, said more than 100 refugees and aid workers were among the dead. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters.

Doctors Without Borders said its team based in Rann counted at least 52 bodies and was treating 200 wounded, many in critical condition, and the death toll was expected to rise.

“This large-scale attack on vulnerable people who have already fled from extreme violence is shocking and unacceptable,” said Dr. Jean-Clément Cabrol, the aid group’s director of operations.

As night fell, the group’s team struggled to stabilize the seriously wounded. “We hope that during the night not many more people will die,” said the group’s head of emergency programs, Hugues Robert, describing a complex evacuation because the area is insecure.

Photographs of the carnage showed a man carrying a wounded child, his clothing stained with blood, as well as bloodied victims being treated on the ground outside a tent clinic overflowing with the wounded. Nearby, corpses lay covered by blankets and prayer mats, alongside mounds of hastily dug graves.

After the attack, the charred remains of makeshift corrugated iron lean-tos and mud homes filled the landscape.

The International Committee for the Red Cross said six workers with the Nigerian Red Cross were among the dead and 13 were wounded. “They were part of a team that had brought in desperately needed food for over 25,000 displaced persons,” spokesman Jason Straziuso said in a statement from Nairobi, Kenya.

Two soldiers were also wounded, as well as Nigerians working for Doctors Without Borders, Irabor said, without giving a precise figure.

The general, who is the theater commander for counterinsurgency operations in northeast Nigeria, said he ordered the mission based on information that Boko Haram insurgents were gathering in the area, along with geographic coordinates.

It was too early to say if a tactical error was made, he said, adding that the bombing would be investigated.

Doctors Without Borders spokesman Etienne l’Hermitte in Geneva urged authorities to facilitate cross-border land and air evacuations.

“Our medical and surgical teams in Cameroon and Chad are ready to treat wounded patients. We are in close contact with our teams, who are in shock following the event,” he said in a statement.

Villagers have previously reported civilian casualties in airstrikes on Boko Haram positions in northeastern Nigeria.

Some of the schoolgirls kidnapped by the insurgents in 2014 and freed last year have said three of their classmates were killed by air force bombardments, according to the freed girls’ parents. Of the nearly 300 schoolgirls who were abducted, 196 remain missing.

The bombings have helped drive Boko Haram out of many towns and villages and, according to Buhari, the insurgents’ last stronghold in the Sambisa Forest last month.

Boko Haram’s 7-year-old Islamic uprising has killed more than 20,000 people and forced 2.6 million from their homes, creating the continent’s worst humanitarian crisis, with the United Nations warning some 5.1 million people face starvation. </s> MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (AP) — A Nigerian state official says an Air Force fighter jet on a mission against Boko Haram extremists has mistakenly bombed a refugee camp, killing more than 100 refugees and wounding aid workers.

The Borno state government official is helping to coordinate the evacuation of wounded. The official spoke Tuesday on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to reporters.

Military commander Maj. Gen. Lucky Irabor confirms the accidental bombardment in northeast Rann, near the border with Cameroon. The general says among the wounded are Nigerians working for Doctors Without Borders and the International Committee of the Red Cross.

This is believed to be the first time Nigeria's military has admitted to making such a mistake.

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A fire at a refugee camp in Nigeria kills eight and leaves 15,000 homeless. The residents are people displaced by ongoing conflict with Boko Haram.