Chadian forces in the northeastern Nigerian town of Dikwa say they have recaptured the town from Boko Haram militants.
The military reported that 34 soldiers were injured in the effort to liberate the town, which had been under the control of Boko Haram for weeks. Soldiers were going street to street, looking for remaining militants who had not yet fled.
The Associated Press reports hundreds of civilians in Dikwa, in Borno state, were killed while the militants had control of the town. VOA's Hausa service reports that refugees from the town have been reluctant to talk about what happened there.
Also Tuesday, the United Nations refugee agency reported some 16,000 refugees have sought shelter in Cameroon to escape the clashes in northeastern Nigeria. Cameroon's authorities said they expect the stream of refugees to continue, while the U.N. says it is helping Cameroon move the refugees to a camp farther inside the border, away from the violence.
On Monday, Boko Haram militants released a video that purported to show the beheading of two men the group accused of spying.
The six-minute video, released online, has similarities to those produced by the Islamic State militant group and features the black IS flag flying in the upper right hand corner.
This is the second time the Nigerian extremist group has released a beheading video. The first, in October, showed Boko Haram executing a man said to be the pilot of a missing Nigerian Air Force jet.
The video released Monday, titled "Harvest of Spies," shows masked militants with long knives standing behind two men forced to kneel on the ground. Before his beheading, one of the men identifies himself as Dawoud Muhammad of Baga city in northeastern Nigeria, and says he accepted the equivalent of $25 from a police officer to spy.
Boko Haram has killed thousands of people since launching its insurgency in 2009 and controls numerous towns in northeastern Nigeria. Nigeria, Chad, Niger and Cameroon launched an offensive against the group in late January and have retaken some of the towns.
