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Denmark sends help to Boko Haram victims

The Local Denmark
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Denmark sends help to Boko Haram victims
A man injured in a suicide blast is carried on a mattress by relatives in the northeast Nigerian town of Potiskum on Monday. Photo: AFP/Aminu Abubakar/Scanpix

Committing 12.5 million kroner, Development Minister Mogens Jensen said that the world must not overlook the actions of Boko Haram in Nigeria, where the Islamic group is displaying "one of the ugliest" faces of extremism.

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Denmark’s development minister, Mogens Jensen, announced on Thursday that Denmark will contribute 12.5 million kroner ($2 million) to human rights organizations that are assisting the victims of the “madness” carried out by Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram in Nigeria. 
 
In recent weeks, the militants have reportedly attacked several Nigerian towns, almost completely wiping out two of them. Amnesty International has said that as many as 2,000 people have been killed in the attacks, while the Nigerian military puts the figure at 150. 
 
Even without the concrete numbers being confirmed, human rights groups agree that it is the deadliest Boko Haram attack in more than five years. 
 
“The victims of Boko Haram's attacks need help. We need to show solidarity with the affected families and contribute to them getting food, clothes, shelter and the ability to make it through this crisis” Jensen said in a press release. 
 
Jensen said that 6.2 million kroner would be contributed to the International Committee of the Red Cross efforts in northeast Nigeria, while the UN Refugee Agency would put 6.3 million kroner of a Danish-financed emergency help fund to use in Nigeria, Chad and Cameroon. 
 
Jensen equated Boko Haram with terrorist groups al-Qaeda and the group alternately known as the Islamic State, Isis of IS. 
 
“We unfortunately see many different faces of extremism these days and Boko Haram's is one of the ugliest. The world’s eyes are naturally turned toward IS and the Islamic terror in Paris and the Middle East, but we must not forget what is happening in northern Nigeria and neighbour countries Cameroon, Chad and Niger,” Jensen said. 
 
Witnesses of Boko Haram’s rampage have told media that the terrorist went house to house, pulling people out of their homes and killing them in the streets.
 
The jihadist group gained international notoriety in April 2014 by kidnapping almost 300 young girls from the Nigerian town of Chibok. Boko Haram is thought to now be using some of those kidnapped girls as suicide bombers. Two suicide bombings over the weekend at Nigerian marketplaces killed at least 19 people. The bombs were reportedly carried by girls as young as ten years old. 

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