Boko Haram hostages freed
January 19, 2015
The Cameroon army said on Monday it had managed to free about 24 people who had been kidnapped during a cross-border attack by militants from northern Nigeria.
"They were freed as defense forces pursued the attackers who were heading back to Nigeria," defense ministry spokesman Colonel Didier Badjeck said.
Sunday's raid, in which around 80 people were kidnapped near the northern village of Mabass, is the largest abduction ever carried out on Cameroonian soil.
The Boko Haram group, which controls parts of northeastern Nigeria, is seeking to establish an Islamic state in Africa. Frequent raids, killings and suicide bomb attacks perpetrated by the jihadists have claimed at least 13,000 lives and displaced an estimated 1.5 million people.
Last April, the group seized more than 200 schoolgirls from the northeastern Nigerian town of Chibok, an abduction that drew international attention and outrage.
In recent months Boko Haram has also started recruiting fighters in neighboring Cameroon, Chad and Niger. Countries in the region have expressed concerns about violence spilling over Nigeria's borders into their territories.
On Saturday, Chad sent troops and equipment to Cameroon and Nigeria in a bid to help tackle the Islamist insurgency.
nm/bw (Reuters, AFP)