Boko Haram just kidnapped another 60 people in Cameroon, which borders Nigeria to the East. According to the BBC, they were mostly women and children between the ages of 10-15 years old:
Cameroon’s Information Minister Issa Tchiroma Bakary confirmed the attacks saying between 30 and 50 people were taken in the raids – although he said an exact number was difficult to establish as investigations were ongoing.
“They burnt to ashes almost 80 houses,” he said.
A police officer told the AFP news agency put the figure of hostages at around 60, saying “most were women and children”.
Officials told Reuters that as many as 80 people had been kidnapped. Those abducted included about 30 adults and 50 children between the ages of 10 and 15, an army officer deployed to northern Cameroon told the agency.
Cameroon has criticised Nigeria for failing to do more to confront Boko Haram.
Here’s more:
The Islamist militants “burst into two villages in the Tourou area… They torched houses and left with around 60 people. Most of them were women and children,” a police officer told AFP.
He said the cross-border attack had “left some people dead” without giving an exact toll, adding that the Cameroon army had “launched an operation” in the wake of the assault.
The kidnapping was the biggest in Cameroon by the Islamists who have staged a series of attacks in the country in recent months and escalated their bloody insurgency in their stronghold in northeastern Nigeria.
The assault was launched after neighboring Chad deployed troops to combat Boko Haram both in Cameroon and Nigeria.
In other news this weekend it’s suspected that Boko Haram killed 4 and wounded 48 in a suicide attack on a bus station in Nigeria:
A suicide bomber killed four people and wounded dozens Sunday in an attack on a bus station in Potiskum, northeastern Nigeria, police and hospital sources told AFP.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility but the town has often come under attack from Boko Haram militants.
Witnesses to the latest attack said the explosion ripped through the bus station at Tashar Kunne, on the outskirts of town, at around 10:30 a.m. (0930 GMT).
“[The bomber] slowed his car twice … some distance from the bus station and he suddenly increased speed and rammed into buses lined up waiting for passengers,” local trader Umar Sani said.
A police officer said four bodies and 48 wounded people had been taken from the scene.
A nurse at the Potiskum General Hospital gave a similar death and injury toll, and said local residents had rushed to the hospital in search of their loved ones.
She described the suicide bomber as a young man.