Kano, Nigeria--Boko Haram appears to have been weakened by a sustained regional fight-back but there are growing fears the group could target vulnerable people displaced by the violence, as elections approach.
More than 13,000 people have been killed in the bloody six-year insurgency, with some 1.5 million more forced to flee their homes within Nigeria and abroad.
Security analysts have warned that with the Islamists hit hard by the coalition of Nigeria, Niger, Cameroon and Chad, the group will revert to guerrilla tactics of bombings and suicide attacks.
There has already been a spate of suicide bombings against "soft" targets such as markets and bus stations since the turn of the year.
Now, it is feared that internally displaced people (IDP) could be next, after Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau vowed to disrupt this Saturday's elections, which the group views as "un-Islamic".
"Boko Haram are very likely to hit back in a way that will hurt Nigeria and IDP camps are possible targets," Abdullahi Bawe Wase, a security analyst who tracks the conflict, told AFP.
- Explosives found -
Scores of IDP camps dot Maiduguri following a huge influx of people fleeing towns and villages seized by Boko Haram, doubling the population of the Borno state capital to at least two million.
Last Monday, the head of Nigeria's electoral commission INEC, Attahiru Jega, said 20 percent of the estimated one million IDPs were in camps and arrangements had been made for them to vote.
"We have found stable places in most cases outside the camps, except in Maiduguri, where in a few places we have placed (polling stations) inside the camps for security reasons," he said.
Yet even here safety is an issue, with the discovery on March 14 of three explosive devices at the Yerwa Primary School camp.
A fourth explosive device has yet to be located, as the suspects forgot where it was planted, said Ari Butari, a local civilian vigilante involved in camp security.
Eight people were arrested and two allegedly confessed to planting the devices. They were living among the IDPs, many of whom fled from the state's second largest city, Bama, last September.
"We are really apprehensive about our security since the discovery of the explosives," said Babakura Kyarimi, who lives in the camp.
"It is a clear indication that there are Boko Haram elements in our midst, which is of serious concern to us and the authorities."
The discovery backs up previous claims about the danger of Boko Haram infiltrating the camps, including from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Maiduguri last August.
In January, troops detained as a precaution thousands of people who left the garrison town of Monguno on the outskirts of Maiduguri to establish whether rebel fighters were among them.
AFP
