Boko Haram fighters terrorise Cameroon

At least 12 people were killed in two separate Boko Haram attacks in Cameroon’s Far North Region, Col. Issa Babatouran told Anadolu Agency on Thursday.

1,000 – Since January 2014, Cameroonian security forces have arrested at least 1,000 people suspected of supporting Boko Haram. The government has said that 25 died in their first night of detention from asphyxiation, but Amnesty said that another 130 remain missing.

Amnesty highlighted a raid by security forces in December on the villages of Magdeme and Double, in which 70 buildings were burnt down and at least eight people killed, including a 7-year-old child, according to residents. “Overcrowding, lack of sanitation and inadequate health care led to the death of at least 40 prisoners between March and May 2015 alone”, the report said.

He added that Boko Haram was able to resist because they had sophisticated weapons.

Midjiyawa Bakary, the governor of Far North Cameroon, confirmed the attack, saying a few houses were burned and the military is combing the hills on the border with Nigeria to track the assailants. Thirty-three civilians were killed and more than 100 wounded in three suicide bombings in Maroua on 22 and 23 July 2015.

Boko Haram, behind a 6-year-old insurgency aimed at carving out an Islamic state in Nigeria’s restive North-East, has made regular forays into Northern Cameroon over the past 2 years.

It says dozens more are dying in a “heavy-handed” response by security forces.

“The fate of most of those arrested in these two villages remains unknown”. Ilaria Allegrozzi is a researcher for Amnesty international, specializing in Central Africa.

But Tine said security forces had responded in kind.

At least 200 men and boys were detained in the raid. Other eyewitnesses say the numbers could be higher, but the authorities have yet to provide the names of the deceased, or the location of their bodies.

“It is unacceptable that nearly nine months after the mass arrest of 200 men and boys, most of their families still do not know whether they are dead or alive”.

He said this has caused rising concern about possible abuses arising from a crackdown on the Boko Haram militants. “Crimes committed on all sides must be immediately and impartially investigated”.

The 74-page report describes how Boko Haram has brutally killed civilians and also details excessive use of force by Cameroonian soldiers in their fight against the insurgents.

Based on the evidence gathered, Amnesty international believes that an internal armed conflict is taking place in Northern Cameroon.