Some 7,000 members of the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) and Boko Haram have surrendered in northeast Nigeria in the past week, according to local media reports.
On Wednesday, the News Agency of Nigeria quoted Major General Christopher Musa, a top commander in the region, as saying that an onslaught targeting ISWAP and Boko Haram fighters has continued to record significant success.
Musa said at least 7,000 Boko Haram and ISWAP members surrendered in the last week during the operations.
“This is evident as thousands of the insurgents comprising combatants, non-combatants, foot soldiers, alongside their families, continued to lay down their arms in different parts of Borno to accept peace,” he said.
The surrendering fighters and their families are expected to be profiled by the Nigerian army and other stakeholders before they undergo rehabilitation processes, the general added.
Since 2009, Boko Haram has launched an uprising in northeast Nigeria. Its attacks have spread to neighbouring Niger, Chad and Cameroon, prompting a military response. The group has also become splintered, with one faction pledging allegiance to ISIL (ISIS).
About 350,000 people have been killed and three million civilians displaced in more than a decade of fighting in the country, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Nigeria.
