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Boko Haram abducts 30 boys, girls in another raid
Cameroon kills 39 sect fighters
No fewer than 30 boys and girls were at the weekend abducted in a Borno State village as BokoHaram continued to violate the “ceasefire” it allegedly reached with the government.
Some government officials had a discussion with some Boko Haram representatives in Saudi Arabia two weeks ago after which a ceasefire was pronounced by Chief of Defence Staff Air Chief Marshal Alex Badeh.
Talks are going on in N’Djamena, the Chadian capital, believed to be coordinated by President Idris Derby.
The release of the abducted 219 Chibok girls, since April, is believed to be top of the discussion.
But the sect has continued its violence without let, although its representative at the Saudi talks said the attacks were being carried out by “armed robbers”.
Boko Haram at the weekend killed 17 in attacks. It abducted 30 girls and boys in a Borno village and killed four Nigerians in an attack on a Nigerian refugees’ camp in Cameroon. The Nigerians in the camp were those who fled Boko Haram’s attacks.
A local chief confirmed the attack and abductions to reporters yesterday.
“The insurgents… grabbed young people, boys and girls, from our region,” said Alhaji Shettima Maina, who is in charge of the Mafa village around 50km east of Maiduguri, the Borno State capital
“They took all boys aged 13 and over… and all girls aged 11 and more. According to our information, 30 young people were abducted in the last two days.” Another village elder, Mallam Ashiekh Mustapha, confirmed the account to the French News Agency (AFP)
Both men said 17 people were also killed in recent days in a Boko Haram attack on the nearby village of Ndongo.
Kidnapping young women and girls — as well as forcibly conscripting young men and boys to fight for Boko Haram — is a well-established tactic by the militants.
Some estimates put the number of women held by the group in the high hundreds. Most are believed to be forced into marriages with rebels.
Mr. Maina said his village and areas around it were targeted in nearly daily raids by Boko Haram, prompting many residents to flee to the city of Maiduguri for safety. He said he had pleaded for help from the government but that so far none had been forthcoming.
The sect members also attacked a refugees’ camp, where Nigerians running from insurgency are camped in Cameroon. Four Nigerians were killed. A Cameroonian was injured. It was one of the three raids they carried out on Cameroon territory.
But Cameroonian forces subsequently killed 39 Boko Haram men. Cameroon’s Defence Ministry, in a statement yesterday, said Friday’s fighting in the far north of Cameroon near Nigeria also claimed four civilian lives.
Their latest attack targeted the village of Glawi, “killing four Nigerian refugees and wounding one Cameroonian, before being pushed back by defence forces which pursued them until the borders,” the ministry said, adding that a dozen militants were killed by troops.
Another two groups of Boko Haram Islamists entered Cameroon at around the same time, but were “immediately intercepted and neutralised by our defence forces who destroyed three 4×4 vehicles equipped with machine guns, killing 27 assailants,” said the ministry statement.
The toll issued by the ministry has not been confirmed by independent sources. There was also no details on any casualties suffered by the army.
The Cameroonian army regularly issues updates on the number of Boko Haram fighters it has killed.
Last week, it said it killed 107 Islamists during fighting that also saw eight Cameroonian soldiers dead.
Cameroon President Paul Biya has vowed to “totally wipe out” the Islamist group, after 27 Chinese and Cameroonian hostages kidnapped in May and July on Cameroon’s territory by suspected Boko Haram Islamists were released.
Cameroon shares a border of more than 2,000 kilometres (1,200 miles) with Nigeria, where Boko Haram has been waging a bloody insurgency since 2009 in which 10,000 people have died.
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