It’s been a bloody 2013 in Nigeria’s troubled North-East region, especially from May, when President Goodluck Jonathan imposed emergency rule in much of the region in response to growing menace of Boko Haram terrorists.

An idea of the extent of the bloodletting came yesterday when the United Nations Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha) stated that more than 1,200 people have been killed in Islamist-related violence in the three states of states of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa, where emergency rule remains in place.

An AFP report quoted a spokesman for Ocha as saying that the figures do not include those killed during military operations.

“The humanitarian situation in north-east Nigeria has been increasingly worrisome over the course of 2013,” the UN said.

It identified 48 separate Boko Haram-related attacks in the region since emergency rule was declared.

“Information on the situation is scarce,” with figures of those displaced by the conflict and those who have fled to neighbouring states “hard to gauge,” Ocha stated.

News Express reports that about 4,000 are believed to have lost their lives since Boko Haram, which was founded in Maiduguri in 2002, launched its first uprising in 2009. This is in addition to the wanton destruction of property worth several billions of naira.

•Photo shows a group of Boko Haram fighters.