The sordid picture of destruction left by the rampaging Boko Haram militants in Fotokol, Cameroon has emerged.
About 70 civilians and six Cameroonian soldiers were killed during the early morning assault, a local security source said.
“There were also Boko Haram bodies “everywhere,” the source added.
“Boko Haram inflicted so much damage here this morning. They have killed dozens of people,” Umar Babakalli, a resident of Fotokol, told AFP by telephone.
During the rampage, Boko Haram also torched a mosque before being repelled by regional forces.
The onslaught came a day after Chad sent troops across the border to flush the jihadists out of the Nigerian town of Gamboru, which lies some 500 metres (yards) from Fotokol on the other side of a bridge.
Chad’s army said it had killed more than 200 Boko Haram militants in the intervention — the first by regional forces against Boko Haram on its home ground. But some of the insurgents escaped, it added. Cameroon also said its forces killed 50 Boko Haram fighters.
In Fotokol, several residents said civilians’ throats were slit and that the town’s main mosque was torched.
“They burnt houses and killed civilians as well as soldiers,” a source close to security forces said.
After several hours of clashes Cameroonian troops, backed by Chadian forces who scrambled back from Nigeria to help guard the town, managed to repel the assault.
No official death toll was immediately available.
On Tuesday, nine Chadian soldiers were killed and 21 were injured in Gamboru after around 2,000 troops backed by armoured vehicles poured across the border to take the fight to Boko Haram after days of clashes.
The sound of automatic gunfire could still be heard in the town later Wednesday as troops sought remaining rebel elements.
The intervention came days after the African Union backed plans for a 7,500-strong five-nation regional force to take on the extremists, who control vast swathes of northeast Nigeria.
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