The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) has said that there are some 678 children that are without parents and homes in the North Eastern part of the country.

The NEMA spokesperson, Abdulkadir Ibrahim, told our Correspondent in a chat that at least 15,204 people had fled Damboa, when Boko Haram terrorists launched a deadly attack on the town. “Out of this, are over 230 children, whose parents have either been killed by the insurgents or escaped to unknown places to save their lives.”

He stated this in a text messages to our Correspondent on Tuesday from Potiskum, after NEMA’s assessment tour of the area affected by Monday blast at the Government Science College that claimed the life of some 47 students and injured over a dozen more.

“The number of displaced persons in the town of Biu is 10,204. We have 3,000 in Maiduguri and 2,000 in Goniri,” he said.

It would be recalled that on Monday, media reports had it that Boko Haram had taken over Damboa and were seeking to establish themselves as the local authority, something the Nigerian Islamist are not widely known to do.

But the military stated otherwise. “We are not conceding any portion of this country to any terrorist group,” defence spokesman Chris Olukolade said.

“Security agencies are firming up deployment of troops in the entire area…We are also going to reverse every form of insecurity in that area very soon,” he added.

Boko Haram has relentlessly targeted civilians across the northeast, killing more than 2,000 already this year, and staged brazen attacks on the security forces.

Should the Islamists prove capable of holding their ground in Damboa in the face of a military assault, it would mark a major embarrassment for the security forces and signal a significant setback in Nigeria’s effort to crush the five-year uprising.

A massive assault by Boko Haram in the northeast Nigerian town of Damboa, had allegedly displaced more than 15,000 people, an official said Monday, as the security forces sent reinforcements to flush out the Islamist fighters.

The attack on Damboa began late Thursday but continued through the weekend, with witnesses saying that civilians were left defenceless by the security forces who withdrew from the area earlier this month.