UN envoy urges international community to watch Boko Haram ‘carefully’

A UN envoy has alerted the international community of the need to watch the Boko Haram terrorist group “carefully”.

The call was made at the UN headquarters by Francois Fall, special representative of the secretary-general for Central Africa and the head of the UN Regional Office for the region (UNOCA).

While briefing the security council on the developments in the Central African sub-region, he said: “The Nigeria-based Boko Haram extremist group was also a malicious threat to the region that the international community needed to watch carefully, as it continues to launch ‘indiscriminate attacks’ against security forces as well as civilians.

“Efforts to stamp out Boko Haram should also focus on addressing the root causes of the insurgency, said the UN envoy.”

He warned that rising violence in the Central African Republic threatened to spill across the border into neighbouring countries, creating further instability, and urged continued and coordinated regional efforts to bolster peace and security.

He said a comprehensive and cautious approach is needed against the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) as the African Union works to replace its ongoing initiative against the rebel group, he said.

Replacing the AU’s initiative to neutralise the LRA should not leave a security vacuum that the group could exploit to relaunch and intensify its campaign of violence, he said.