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UN chief welcomes African anti-Boko Haram taskforce

31 January 2015 18:16 (UTC +04:00)

"We welcome deployment of AU troops against Boko Haram," Ban told a press conference on the sidelines of the 24th African summit in Addis Ababa.

On Friday, the AU Peace and Security Council approved the deployment of 7,500 troops to Nigeria to fight Boko Haram.

The UN chief said that Boko Haram was posing serious security danger not only to Nigeria but to the whole region.

Ban, however, said that the military action may not be the only solution for defeating Boko Haram.

"There should be analysis on the root causes," he said.

For the last five years, Nigeria has battled a fierce Boko Haram insurgency that has ravaged the country's volatile northeast and claimed thousands of lives.

The year 2014 proved to be the insurgency's bloodiest year yet, with increasingly frequent attacks, higher death tolls and a deluge of displaced persons.

A seemingly emboldened Boko Haram recently stepped up its militant activity, seizing several areas of Nigeria's Adamawa, Yobe and Borno states, where it has since declared an "Islamic caliphate."

The attacks displaced well over 1.5 million people in 2014, according to a recent report by the Borno State government.