• Young Nigerian refugees draw on April 6 during a therapy program managed by UNICEF in a refugee camp near Baga Sola. Bloody faces, headless bodies, burned houses — just some of the stark and haunting images drawn by children who have fled deadly Boko Haram violence in neighboring Nigeria for the relative safety of a refugee camp in western Chad. UNICEF says 800,000 children have fled the insurgency in the past year. | AFP-JIJI
    Young Nigerian refugees draw on April 6 during a therapy program managed by UNICEF in a refugee camp near Baga Sola. Bloody faces, headless bodies, burned houses — just some of the stark and haunting images drawn by children who have fled deadly Boko Haram violence in neighboring Nigeria for the relative safety of a refugee camp in western Chad. UNICEF says 800,000 children have fled the insurgency in the past year. | AFP-JIJI

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LAGOS – The number of children fleeing the Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria doubled in the past year to about 800,000, with women and girls targets of abduction for sexual abuse by the militants, according to a United Nations Children’s Fund report.

Boko Haram’s six-year campaign to impose Islamic law in Nigeria has forced more than 1.5 million people from their homes, according to UNICEF. The number of displaced includes 1.2 million inside Nigeria, with about 200,000 crossing into neighboring Cameroon, Chad and Niger, stretching social services, health care and other facilities in host communities.

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