72 Battalion lost 28 soldiers to Boko Haram, others

The Commanding Officer, 72 Special Forces
Battalion, Makurdi, Timothy Lagbaja, has said
that the battalion lost 28 soldiers to
insurgency in the North-East and in Benue.
Mr. Lagbaja, a colonel, told newsmen in
Makurdi on Wednesday that between 2012
and 2015, the battalion lost four officers and
eight soldiers to the Tiv/Fulani and Agatu
crises in Benue.
He said the remaining 16 were lost to
insurgency in the North-East, while many
others who sustained degrees of injuries were
either flown abroad or treated in the country.
The commander said the battalion alone had
deployed about 500 soldiers to serve in the
special security outfit `operation Zenda’ to
maintain internal security in the state.
According to him, the effort is paying off as
weapons hitherto in the hands of wrong
people have been recovered.
He said that the high criminality in the state
had been reduced to “few isolated cases of
killings’’.
(NAN)