Boko Haram attacks Cameroon IDP camp, kills 16

Fighters from the Boko Haram jihadist group killed at least 16 people in an attack on a camp for displaced people in northern Cameroon, an official said Sunday.

“The toll is currently 16 dead, it is clear that it was Boko Haram that was responsible,” local mayor Mahamat Chetima Abba told AFP following the overnight attack on the Nguetchewe camp.

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Another local politician described the area where the attack took place as one in which people would “hide” from Boko Haram attacks.

The jihadist group, formed in northeastern Nigeria in 2009, has regularly launched attacks there since 2014, staging small-scale raids aimed at stealing livestock and food.

The area is known as the Far North, an impoverished tongue of land that lies between Chad to the east and Nigeria to the west.

“There had been a relative calm for a few weeks, but they took advantage of their knowledge of the terrain to bypass surveillance points and the positions of the security forces. They surprised us,” the mayor added. (AFP)