An Associated Press photographer in the northeastern town, provides a photo gallery of the victory soldiers from Niger and Chad on Wednesday celebrated as they liberated Damasak from Boko Haram extremists.
Waving a captured black and white militant flag, soldiers from Niger and Chad on Wednesday celebrated their liberation of a Nigerian town from Boko Haram extremists. It is another victory in a regional campaign to wrest back swaths of northeast Nigeria from the Islamist militants.
Damasak, just a few miles over the border from Niger, was liberated over the weekend, Col. Michel Ledru, a spokesman for Niger’s army, said Wednesday.
In heavy fighting, 228 militants were killed and one soldier from Niger died, Ledru said. Vehicles and motor cycles riddled with bullets littered the streets. An Associated Press photographer in the northeastern town said it was largely deserted of civilians on Wednesday. Four people, including an old man, came onto the street to wave at a convoy among 2,000 troops from Niger and Chad in the town.
There were still signs of the town’s occupation by the militants. Their writings were scrawled on every wall and the extremists’ black and white flag still flew above some buildings.
As two Chadian helicopters landed with supplies, soldiers on the ground started chanting and displaying their catch: A Boko Haram flag torn down from a nearby building.
On the outskirts of town, hundreds of troops have set up camp. Some soldiers hid from the 45-degree (113-degree Fahrenheit) heat in the shade to their tanks. Some used their helmets to grind grain for a meal. A few did laundry while others cooked food.
It was all work for a group of Chadian troops who transferred weapons captured from Boko Haram to a pickup truck that drove it to the helicopters for transport back to Niger: AK47 assault rifles and 50-caliber guns, rocket-propelled grenades and mortar shells. “Boko Haram is far now, very far,” said one soldier.
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About 15 soldiers from Chad and Niger died in fighting to take control of two towns in northern Nigeria from Boko Haram, the first gains against the militants in a joint offensive launched at the weekend, military sources said on Monday.
About 30 Nigerien and Chadian soldiers were wounded in the clashes over Malam Fatouri and Damasak, a day after thousands of troops crossed the border to seize areas held by the Sunni Islamist group, whose insurgency has forced Nigeria to delay an election and neighbors to mobilize their armies.
A Chadian officer, who asked not to be named, said about 10 Chadian soldiers were killed and 20 wounded in fighting for the towns. Two sources with Niger’s military told Reuters five of its soldiers were killed in the clashes.
There was no official comment from the armies of either Chad or Niger. “We have kicked the enemy out of these areas and they are now under our control,” a Niger military officer said.
The advancing troops had seized large quantities of arms and ammunition as well as vehicles, he said, and were undertaking a clean-up operation in the area. “The troops have taken dozens of Boko Haram elements prisoner,” he added.
Damasak, the town furthest into Nigeria, is 10 km (6 miles) south of the Niger border, where Nigerien and Chadian troops had been massing in recent weeks before the offensive.
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