YAOUNDI: Boko Haram militants have kidnapped 135 people and killed at least eight others in a raid in northern Cameroon, as the Islamists militants continued to strike beyond their strongholds in neighbouring Nigeria.

Cameroon, which is part of a regional force fighting Boko Haram, has been hit by a series of deadly attacks in recent months, with violence surging region-wide since Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari’s swearing in.

More than 800 people have been killed in just two months in Boko Haram’s surge, which began after Buhari took office on a pledge to defeat the militants.

The latest raid took place before dawn on Tuesday in the village of Chakamari in a region of Cameroon known as the Extreme North.

It came as Guinea offered help in the regional fight against Boko Haram whose bloody insurgency in Nigeria has increasingly spread to neighbouring states.

“Men from Boko Haram attacked our neighbours in the village of Chakamari overnight Monday-Tuesday. They killed eight people, two women and six men,” a member of a vigilante group in a neighbouring village said on Wednesday.

The vigilante, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the attackers torched many homes before making off with the hostages.

A police source confirmed the death toll and the number of people abducted.

Cameroon has been hit in the areas of Fotokol and Maroua by five suicide bombings in recent weeks, some of them carried out by women and girls.

Boko Haram’s bloody insurgency has left more than 15,000 people dead since 2009.The spokesman for Cameroon’s government said on Wednesday on state radio that two women, aged 19 and 21, were arrested last week in possession of handbags containing explosives.

“The explosive charges used by the terrorists are military in origin, apparently taken during Boko Haram attacks on military sites or taken from countries involved in armed conflict,” Communication Minister Tchiroma Bakary said.

Published in Dawn, August 6th, 2015

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