By Musdapha Ilo in Maiduguri

More than 5, 000 persons, mainly women, children and the elderly, have been liberated from Dikwa, the Borno town recaptured from Boko Haram insurgents by the Nigerian military, the National Emergency Management Agency, NEMA, has confirmed.

NEMA’s North east coordinator, Mohammed Kanar, disclosed in Maiduguri, Borno State capital, that the liberated persons were starved and cut off from the rest of the world by the insurgents, who forced them to depend on little food from the farms and livestock without the freedom to trade with the outside world.

“They explained that they were virtually imprisoned in their communities by insurgents who had cut off their access to the rest of the world,” Kanar told journalists, adding that the agency and state government officials, led by the Secretary to the State Government, Usman Shuwa, delivered relief items to displaced persons, who are camped in a partly destroyed government estate in the town.

Kanar said about 500 of the liberated persons, who were in critical condition, have been brought to Maiduguri and camped at the Sanda Kyarimi IDPs camp while the rest remained in Dikwa, with more relief items expected to be taken to them in the coming days.

Despite the recapture of many communities from the insurgents, there are still pockets of insurgents left with some recently ambushing the advance team of the Chief of Army Staff, Tukur Buratai, who visited troops deployed in the area.