At least 41 militants and one soldier were reportedly killed as Cameroon military launched rockets at suspected Boko Haram fighters, who attacked its base on the border near Amchide and seized a huge portion of the town of Ashigashia.
Voice of America reports Cameroon military spokesman, Colonel Didier Badjeck, as saying that about 1,000 suspected Boko Haram fighters had seized parts of the villages of Ngouma, Sagme, Ardebe, Mbaljuel, Dambore, Soueram and Ashigashia and briefly occupied a military camp on Sunday.
Badjeck also said the militants had kidnapped several girls since Friday for forced marriages to the group’s fighters.
He said the military was informed by local residents that Boko Haram had taken girls between the ages of 12 and 15 and performed forced marriages and obtained Hausa language documents announcing the “weddings.”
President Paul Biya was said to have personally ordered the air strike, which forced the Boko Haram fighters from Nigeria to flee the camp at Assighasia, Al Jazeera reports Communications Minister, Issa Bakary, as saying in a statement.
Bakary said the multiple attacks showed that Boko Haram had adopted a new strategy aimed at “distracting Cameroonian troops on different fronts, making them more vulnerable in the face of the mobility and unpredictability of their attacks.”
No fewer than 34 militants were killed after the army raided one of their bases in Cameroon, while another seven were killed in a separate clash, which also claimed the life of a soldier, Bakary said, Reuters reports.
Last week, Cameroon said it had dismantled a Boko Haram training camp on its territory, and had seized 84, children who were being trained there.
More than 40 Cameroonian soldiers had been killed in fighting with Boko Haram this year, according to Reuters.
-THE PUNCH-
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