Nigerian army claims recapture of Baga

A statement from Nigeria's defense headquarters on Saturday said the army was "mopping up" after retaking the town from Boko Haram militants. It added that the insurgents had suffered heavy casualties.

The army's claim has not been independently verified.

The Islamist group Boko Haram has been in control of Baga since January 3, when it overran the fishing town on the shores of Lake Chad, sending thousands of people fleeing.

Hundreds of people are estimated to have been killed in the takeover, although the exact death toll remains unknown. Satellite images released later by human rights group Amnesty International purported to show hundreds of buildings burnt to the ground.

The taking of Baga - as well as a military base in nearby Doron Baga - was a strategic victory for the militants, cementing their control of the border region of Nigeria's Borno state, which is shared by Chad, Cameroon, and Niger.

The Sunni group has captured several villages in Nigeria's northeast since launching military operations in 2009, and now controls an area roughly the size of Belgium. In their six-year insurgency, the Islamists have killed more than 13,000 people, displaced more than 1.5 million, and abducted hundreds, including at least 200 schoolgirls from the Nigerian town of Chibok.

The group's rapid growth over the past year has alarmed Nigeria's neighbors, who reached an agreement earlier this month to deploy a multinational force of some 8,700 soldiers in the region around Lake Chad.

Earlier this week Nigeria's military announced the recapture of Monguno, a garrison town 65 kilometers (40 miles) from Baga, after ground and air strikes.

nm/bk (AFP, dpa)