Boko Haram continues its ‘war on children’
Cameroon’s army says it has freed 24 of the hostages kidnapped by Islamist group Boko Haram at the weekend – an attack in which 80 people were taken including 50 children.
.jpg)
Above: a man holds a sign at a rally to support Chadian troops as they head to fight Boko Haram in Cameroon.
Boko Haram fighters targeted the village of Mabass and surrounding villages in Cameroon’s extreme north on Sunday, near the border of Boko Haram’s territory in the north-east of Nigeria.
“According to our initial information, around 30 adults, most of them herders, and 50 young girls and boys aged between 10 and 15 years were abducted,” a senior army officer deployed to northern Cameroon said.
Government spokesman Issa Tchiroma said: “There was a Boko Haram attack on several localities in the far north region. The assailants burnt down about 80 homes and kidnapped several inhabitants including women and very young children.”
Soldiers were reported to have arrived at the villages and exchanged fire with Boko Haram. Three soldiers were reported to have been killed.
On Monday, Cameroon’s army said it had freed 24 of the 80 hostages taken by Boko Haram as soldiers pursued the Islamist group, whose name means “Western education is forbidden”.
Cameroonian defence ministry spokesman Colonel Didier Badjeck said: “The Cameroon army was able to free about 24 hostages taken yesterday by Boko Haram in the far north.
“They were freed as defence forces pursued the attackers who were heading back to Nigeria.”
Child victims
Sunday’s attack was the latest as Boko Haram intensifies its activities. Two weeks ago the group massacred civilians in the town of Baga, Nigeria, and some estimates have put the death toll as high as 2,000.
And the most recent abductions will revive memories of Boko Haram’s attack last April in which hundreds of school girls were kidnapped.
But it not only children who are regularly the target of Boko Haram attacks, they are also used by the group. Last week three suspected child suicide bombers blew themselves up in a market in Yobe state and at a checkpoint – killing 19.
Read more: Jonathan Miller on 'Children - victims of war'
The group has seized swathes of new territory in the run up to Nigeria’s presidential elections – due to take place of 14 February.
Elizabeth Donnelly of Chatham House wrote following the Baga attakcs that though Boko haram’s violent campaign is “unlikely to have an effect on the outcome of elections… some voters – not all – will assess (President) Goodluck Jonathan’s performance as president since 2011 through his handling of the Boko Haram crisis.
In a video posted online this month, a man claiming to be Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau also threatened to step up violence in Cameroon unless it scraps its constitution and embraces Islam.
At the weekend Chad deployed troops to help Cameroon contain the Boko Haram insurgency, along the country’s border with Nigeria.
Ghana’s president John Mahama welcomed the move, saying: “I am encouraged by the news I received that Chad has moved troops into Cameroon to support Cameroon, but I believe that we should do this in a more structured basis, get a mandate from the EU to form a regional force that has an operational plan to be able to deal with the issue of security in north-eastern Nigeria, because terrorism as we all know affects the whole of the world.
“We can not ignore terrorism in any part of the world because it has the tendency to grow like a cancer and affect other parts of the world and so we must work together in respect of that.”
Mr Mahama, also chair of the Economic Community of West African States, was in Germany meeting with Chancellor Angela Merkel. She said a regional force of African soldiers should be deployed to fight Boko Haram, and that the EU should look at helping finance such a force.