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		</div><p>Boko Haram fighters are overrunning villages near the Nigerian town of Chibok, forcing hundreds of people to flee as they loot and burn in the area, local leaders have said.</p>
<p>&#8220;Chibok is now under Boko Haram siege,&#8221; the chairman of the Chibok local government area, Yaga Yarkawa, told journalists in Maiduguri, the birthplace of Nigeria&#8217;s homegrown Islamic extremist group, 80 miles to the north east.</p>
<p>The accounts of Boko Haram violence around Chibok &#8211; where nearly 300 schoolgirls were kidnapped in 2014 &#8211; along with multiple suicide bombings in Maiduguri city and attacks on army outposts in the area, raise doubts about claims by the military and government that the seven-year insurgency is nearly defeated.</p>
<p>Instead, the insurgents have stepped up attacks as the rainy season draws to an end, making them more mobile.</p>
<p>Nine villages within 16 miles of Chibok town have been razed in the past two weeks, with the last attack at Thlaimaklama village at the weekend, Mr Yarkawa said.</p>
<p>Boko Haram is employing scorched earth tactics, rustling livestock, looting crops ready to harvest, and burning homes and what crops they cannot carry, he added. <i>&#8220;Contrary to claims by government and security operatives, Chibok is not safe.&#8221;</i></p>
<p>It is not known if anyone has been killed because people are too scared to go to the deserted villages, civilian defence fighter Bulama Abogu said. No soldiers have intervened, he added.</p>
<p>Many of the villages fringe the Sambisa Forest, where Nigerian security forces have been carrying out near-daily air bombardments and ground attacks and freed thousands of Boko Haram captives and cut food supplies.</p>
<p>The forest stronghold was where Boko Haram initially took 276 schoolgirls kidnapped from a government high school at Chibok on April 14 2014.</p>
<p>Nigeria&#8217;s government last month secured the first negotiated release of 21 Chibok girls. Another girl escaped captivity in May and one was rescued in an army raid earlier this month.</p>
<p>The government says it is conducting negotiations with Boko Haram for the freedom of nearly 200 Chibok girls who remain missing.</p>
<p>The chief of army staff, Lieutenant General Tukur Buratai, last week said <i>&#8220;the terrorists have been defeated&#8221; and the army is conducting &#8220;mop-up operations aimed at ensuring that we clear the rest of them&#8221;.</i></p>
<p>That is disputed by former Nigerian vice president Atiku Abubakar, who said at the weekend: <i>&#8220;The insurgents still occupy a specific geographical space. They still retain the capacity for occasional deadly attacks. Many citizens in the zone still remain vulnerable and live in fear.&#8221;</i></p>
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