The United States Embassy in Nigeria condemned on Thursday deadly Boko Haram suicide bombings at an Internally Displaced Persons camp in Dikwa, Borno state, that left 58 people dead and 78 injured on Tuesday.

“We extend our deepest condolences to the families of the victims,” the Embassy said, adding that America remains committed to assisting internally displaced populations in northeastern Nigeria through humanitarian relief efforts.

“We also continue to support the Nigerian government in its fight against terrorism”.

Nigeria’s Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) said in a statement on Wednesday that the bombings on February 9 “occurred when the IDPs queued up to collect their morning food in the camp which accommodates over 50, 000 people displaced by the Boko Haram terrorism”.

NEMA quoted its Zonal Coordinator in North East, Mr. Mohammed Kanar, as  confirming “that some of the dead have been buried while the injured have been moved to medical facilities for adequate treatments”.

Nigeria’s acting President, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, offered condolences and vowed that the perpetrators of “this evil act” will be hunted down.

“On behalf of the federal government of Nigeria, Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, SAN, expresses his profound condolences to the families of the victims of yesterday’s suicide bombing of an IDP camp in Dikwa, Borno State, and also the entire people and government of the state. His prayers are that the Almighty God will comfort them and grant the injured persons quick recovery,” the Vice President’s office said in a statement by his spokesman Laolu Akande.

President Muhammadu Buhari only returned to the country on Wednesday and Osinbajo will hand back power to him on Thursday.

Osinbajo said it was “regrettable that the heartless terrorists chose to unleash their wickedness on people who were taking refuge from previous acts of destruction in their homes” and reassured the nation that “the full weight of the federal government’s force will be deployed to hunt down the perpetrators of this evil act and also to confront terrorists continuously in the protection of life, liberty and property of all Nigerians”.

He said “there will be no hiding place for terrorists”.

Osinbajo gave directives that “formidable security in and around the IDP Camps in the country be beefed up and renewed measures put in place to guard against future occurrences”

“Finally, the Vice President called on the people of Borno State and all Nigerians that the commitment of the federal government to safety of lives and property continues to be of paramount concern to the Buhari administration”, the statement read.

In neighbouring Cameroon, the terrorists stormed a village on Tuesday night, killed seven people and set at least three churches on fire, just hours before bombing a funeral on Wednesday morning.
That attack took place at Idoua village around Tourou locality in the Mayo-Tsanaga department in the troubled Cameroon’s far north, reported reliable newspaper L’Oeil du Sahel.

Hours after that attack, two Boko Haram suicide bombers blew themselves up at a burial also in Cameroon’s far north on Wednesday morning, killing themselves and at least nine mourners.

L’Oeil du Sahel said the bombers attacked a burial in Nguetchewe locality in Cameroon’s far north, killing at least nine persons and injuring more than 20 mourners.

Boko Haram has stepped up attacks in Cameroon and Nigeria in recent weeks, killing hundreds of people, burning women and children alive and sending many away from their homes even as the Nigerian government claimed that the terrorists have been decimated.

The terrorists who have killed more than 25,000 people in Nigeria in seven years and over 1200 in Cameroon since 2013, including 67 soldiers, pledged allegiance to the Islamic State in March last year and have since modelled their barbarism after the Middle East killers.

On Tuesday, the Nigerian Army announced that it had arrested two of its personnel with unauthorised military items likely meant for Boko Haram, highlighting the difficulty in fighting a terror group with men in the Nigerian army.

The terrorists are firmly based in the Sambisa forest, an area 18 times the size of Nigeria’s most populous state of Lagos, where the army has not penetrated and many soldiers are afraid of going there.

The Nigerian Army also announced on Tuesday that it had dismissed more than 200 soldiers afraid of fighting Boko Haram. The soldiers, the army said in a statement are coward and do not deserve to be part of the army.

With traitors in the Nigerian army and many soldiers afraid of fighting Boko Haram, the war against insurgency does not look like ending soon, especially because a Nigerian senator from Borno said last Saturday that claims by President Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria that the terrorists have been weakened are simply false as they still occupy half of Borno, Nigeria’s second largest state.

President Paul Biya of Cameroon has vowed many times that the military will crush the terrorists within months but with the killings and bombings continuing, many are wondering if the 83-year old leader who has been in power for 33 years still has anything to offer to a country bent by poverty and gargantuan corruption, and now by terrorism.