(MENAFN- Gulf Times) Boko Haram militants have kidnapped 135 people and killed at least eight others in a raid in northern Cameroon, as the Islamists 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 May 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 told AFP yesterday.
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 yesterday 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.
Yaounde has announced it is sending 2,000 more soldiers to the Extreme North to fight Boko Haram, where locals are feeling increasingly threatened by the insurgents.
Meanwhile, Nigerian authorities said yesterday that more than 1,000 nationals had returned home after being deported from northern Cameroon.
The refugees had sought shelter in Cameroon from Boko Haram, but were rounded up and sent home as Yaounde stepped up security measures to prevent Boko Haram suicide attacks.
Last week, local sources in Cameroon said Yaounde had deported more than 2,000 Nigerians living illegally in the north of the country.
But Nigerian officials put the number far higher, saying that around 12,000 people had already been expelled, with the number expected to rise to 17,000.
Also yesterday, Guinea's President Alpha Conde said his country was ready to help in the regional fight against the Islamist militants.
"We are ready to provide any assistance asked of us... in the fight against Boko Haram," Conde said on a visit to Niger's capital Niamey.
Meanwhile, seven jihadists were killed and two soldiers wounded in clashes pitting Boko Haram against Chadian troops on Lake Chad, a security source in N'Djamena said.
A beefed-up task force has been set up to replace the current regional force and is due to go into action soon.
Boko Haram Islamists shot dead nine fishermen in a village near the shores of Lake Chad in northeastern Nigeria, a fisherman and a survivor said yesterday.
The men were heading towards the fishing town of Baga on Tuesday when they were stopped by the militants, dragged out of their van and gunned down, said Abubakar Gamandi, head of the fishermen's union in Borno State.
"From the information I got from survivors of the attack, nine of my members were killed by Boko Haram gunmen on their way to Baga from Monguno. They were ambushed at Maduwari village," he told AFP.
"Soldiers engaged the attackers in a gunfight and killed 13. They also recovered an all-terrain vehicle from the gunmen as well as the vehicle of the victims."
Two vans were taking a group of 17 fishermen to Baga when the convoy spotted the militants blocking the way ahead, said Grema Ari, who was in the second vehicle and survived the ambush.
"They dashed into the road when they heard us approaching. Our driver managed to turn back and headed to Monguno," he told AFP.
The vehicle in front was forced to stop however and its passengers were brought out and shot dead, Ari and Gamandi said.
"Later soldiers brought the bodies of our nine colleagues bearing bullet wounds to Monguno," Ari told AFP.
"They also brought the vehicle that was conveying our colleagues and another one belonging to the gunmen."
Baga was the site of the group's worst-ever massacre in January, when its fighters were accused of slaughtering hundreds of people and forcing thousands of civilians to flee.
The fishing villages around Baga were abandoned after the bloodshed but residents have been returning to settlements secured by the military, locals say.
Tuesday's ambush came a week after Boko Haram fighters slit the throats of 10 fishermen in an attack on three other villages near Baga.
They decided not to use guns "so as not to attract the attention of soldiers from Baga", Gamandi said at the time.
The hundreds of islets separated by channels hidden by tall grass in the Lake Chad region provide cover for the militants to steal livestock and food from local inhabitants.
The jihadists, now affiliated with the Islamic State group, have been using the islands as a rear base after being routed from their traditional strongholds in Nigeria by a four-country military offensive against them. The Chadian army has launched a "major operation" to flush out Boko Haram jihadists from Lake Chad, sparking violent clashes between soldiers and the group.
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