Niger's agriculture minister was remanded in custody Saturday in a politically charged probe into suspected baby trafficking from neighboring Nigeria, aides said.

Boko Haram may be closer than ever to achieving its goal of creating a caliphate in northern Nigeria but comparisons to the Iraq crisis are premature and the military can reverse the group's gains, analysts say.

The conflict in the Islamists' northeastern stronghold remains in flux even as witnesses, security sources and experts report that the insurgents have seized several areas and towns since April.

Nearly 11,500 people from one town in northeast Nigeria are receiving emergency aid after fleeing Boko Haram militants, the country's main relief agency said on Thursday.

Boko Haram has seized control of a town in northeastern Nigeria, the latest to fall into Islamist hands in the crisis-hit region, witnesses and a local official said Thursday.

Several residents who fled the Boko Haram assault on Buni Yadi in Yobe state said it began late last month, with the insurgents ultimately taking over the main government building.

Dozens of Nigerian soldiers have refused to deploy for an offensive against Boko Haram Islamists until they receive better weapons, several of the mutineers told AFP on Wednesday.

The troops said they had been ordered to move out of their barracks in the northeastern city of Maiduguri towards the Gwoza area of Borno state, where the insurgents have reportedly seized pockets of territory.

Suspected Boko Haram gunmen killed 10 people who had fled their homes to escape repeated attacks by the insurgents, after hunting them down in a nearby village, witnesses said on Monday.

Residents of Krenuwa village fled to nearby communities after a Boko Haram raid last month that left seven dead and saw the extremists raze a military camp, police station and several homes.

EU border agency Frontex said Monday it had suspended flights taking migrants back to Nigeria, one of the west African countries hit by the worst-ever Ebola outbreak.

"We have decided to indefinitely suspend those flights that we coordinate", and co-finance, to Nigeria, Frontex spokeswoman Ewa Moncure told Agence France Presse.

Nigeria on Saturday said it has trained 800 volunteers to fight Ebola as fears rose that the worst-ever outbreak of the deadly disease could spread across Africa's most populous nation.

Authorities in Nigeria's megacity Lagos last week appealed for volunteers to make up for a shortage of medical personnel because of a six-week doctors' strike over pay.

Boko Haram Islamists kidnapped scores of people from fishing communities in Nigeria's extreme northeast, hauling some of the hostages away on boats across Lake Chad, witnesses said Friday.

Several people were also reportedly killed in the militant raids on a number of villages in the Kukawa Local Government area in Borno state, a Boko Haram stronghold.

Hundreds of people who escaped a Boko Haram attack need urgent help, a local lawmaker said on Wednesday, as those still hiding on a mountain a week later said food and water supplies had run out.

Islamist militants attacked Gwoza in Borno state, northeast Nigeria, last Wednesday, leaving dozens of people dead and sending others fleeing for their lives, some to hills near the border with Cameroon.