AFRICA/CAMEROON - The Cameroonian military claim successes against Boko Haram but are accused of massacres against civilians in Nigeria

Wednesday, 27 January 2016 armed groups  

Yaounde (Agenzia Fides) - The Cameroonian authorities announced they had inflicted "heavy losses" on Nigerian Boko Haram extremists who perpetrated a fourfold suicide bombing on January 25 in the town of Bodo, in the far north of the Country on the border with Nigeria, which killed 32 people and injured 86.
According to a government statement in Yaounde, at least 17 Boko Haram terrorists were killed and a dozen arrested. The press release also informs that the bodies of two Cameroonian police officers kidnapped on January 4 in Dabanga, on the border with Nigeria were found.
The soldiers of Cameroon, however, have been accused of killing forty Nigerian civilians during a cross-border raid carried out immediately after the attacks on 25 January.
According to the deputy commander of a local Nigerian self-defense group, the bodies were found in the town of Gwadale, on the border between the two Countries, immediately after Cameroonian troops had crossed it.
The military in Youndé are engaged in a multi-national task force in charge of fighting Boko Haram and can, therefore, operate in Nigerian territory in agreement with the authorities of Abuja.
In recent months the Cameroonian troops were accused of committing crimes against the civilian population in Nigeria. In particular, on November 30 some Nigerian refugees said that Cameroonian soldiers killed 150 people and looted cattle and razed entire villages on a strip of land 150 kilometers that runs along the border between the two Countries. Nigeria refused to create a "no man's land" along the Nigerian-Cameroonian border to prevent the occurrence of terrorist attacks. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides 27/01/2016)


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