Cameroon which shares the same border with Nigeria has suffered the spillover effect of the Boko Haram insurgency with a latest attack leaving ruins behind.
Boko Haram leader, Abubakar Shekau
Suspected Boko Haram insurgents have killed 11 people and kidnapped eight others in an overnight raid on a village in northern Cameroon, near the Nigerian border.
The country’s officials said attackers burnt down around 30 houses in Gakara village, just outside the town of Kolofata. An army colonel put the death toll at 11, while a district official said that 15 people had been killed.
The mayor of Kolofata confirmed that an attack had taken place but said he did not know the death toll.
“The attack happened around midnight. The Boko Haram assailants arrived.
“They set 32 houses on fire killed, pillaged, and traumatised the population,” said the district official, who asked not to be named because he was not authorised to speak.
“Many people fled the village for a camp near Kolofata that houses thousands displaced by Boko Haram violence,’’ he said.
Boko Haram attacks have killed more than 20,000 people and displaced 2.7 million during the group’s eight-year insurgency to carve out an Islamic caliphate in the Lake Chad region.