DAMASAK, Nigeria — When Boko Haram launched an insurgency in northeastern Nigeria in 2010, Abdulhameed Salisu packed his bag and fled from his hometown of Damasak in the country’s battered Borno state.

The 45-year-old father of seven came back with his family early last year. They are among thousands of Nigerians taken back from displacement camps to their villages, hometowns or newly built settlements known as “host communities” under a resettlement program that analysts say is being rushed to suggest that the conflict with the Islamic militants is nearly over.

Across Borno, dozens of displacement camps have been shut down, with authorities claiming they are no longer needed and that most places from where the displaced fled are now safe.

But many of the displaced say it’s not safe to go back.

Boko Haram — Nigeria’s homegrown jihadis — took up arms in 2009 to fight against Western education and impose their radical version of Islamic law, or Sharia. The conflict, Africa’s longest struggle with militancy, has spilled into Nigeria’s northern neighbors.

About 35,000 civilians have been killed and more than 2 million have been displaced in the northeastern region, according to U.N. numbers. The 2014 kidnapping of 276 schoolgirls by Boko Haram in the village of Chibok in Borno state, the epicenter of the conflict, shocked the world.

Borno state has nearly 900,000 internally displaced people in displacement camps, with many others absorbed in local communities. So far this year, at least 1,600 civilians have been killed in militant attacks in Borno, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, a U.S.-based nonprofit.

And in a state where at least 70% of the population depends on agriculture, dozens of farmers have been killed by the extremists or abducted from their farmland in the past year.

In May, hundreds of hostages, mostly women and children who had been captive for months or years by Boko Haram were rescued from a forest enclave and handed over to authorities, the army said.

In September, at least 100 villagers were killed by suspected Boko Haram militants who opened fire on a market, on worshippers and in people’s homes in the Tarmuwa council area of the neighboring Yobe state, west of Borno.

Analysts say a forced resettlement could endanger the local population because there is still inadequate security across the hard-hit region.

Salisu says he wastes away his days in a resettlement camp in Damasak, a garrison town in Borno state of about 200,000 residents, close to the border with Niger.

Food is getting increasingly difficult to come by, and Salisu depends on handouts from the World Food Program and other aid organizations. He longs to find work.

“We are begging the government to at least find us a means of livelihood instead of staying idle and waiting for whenever food comes,” he said.

On a visit last week to Damasak, WFP leader Cindy McCain pledged that the world would not abandon the Nigerian people as she called for more funding to support her agency’s aid operations.

“We are going to stay here and do the very best we can to end hunger,” McCain said as she acknowledged the funding shortages. “How do I take food from the hungry and give it to the starving?”

Resettlement usually involves the displaced being taken in military trucks back to their villages or “host communities.” The state government has promised to provide essentials to returnees to help them integrate into these areas, supported by aid groups.

The government says the displacement camps are no longer sustainable.

“What we need now is ... durable solutions,” Borno Gov. Babagana Zulum told McCain on her visit.

Neighboring Niger, Chad and Cameroon have registered at least 52,000 Nigerian refugees since January 2023, according to the U.N. refugee agency.