Update: Boko Haram kidnaps 100 Cameroonians, kills 8

Cameroon has offered a semi-official insight into Boko Haram overnight attack on the village of Tchakarmari, North of Maroua, in the northern part of the country.

While earlier report indicated 7 persons were killed and 20 kidnapped, the Semi-official report now says at least eight people were killed and about 100 others were kidnapped.

The revised estimates were given by local government and military sources.

Tchakarmari, the village targeted early on Tuesday, lies north of Maroua, where dozens of people were killed in a series of suicide bombings by the Nigerian Islamist group last month.

“Residents said the attackers headed back to Nigeria where Cameroon is not allowed to pursue them,” the local government source in the Far North region said.

A senior military officer deployed as part of a Cameroonian military operation aimed at curbing the spillover of violence from Boko Haram’s stronghold in northeastern Nigeria said the attackers had crossed over from Nigeria shortly after midnight.

After the spate of suicide bombings in July, Cameroon’s government announced plans to send an additional 2,000 troops to boost security in the Far North region.

The regional governor has banned burqas since the attacks, which were carried out by veiled female bombers. And over the weekend, authorities rounded up and expelled about 2,800 Nigerians living in Cameroon without the required documents.

Cameroon has already deployed some 7,000 troops as part of a regional force which includes Chad, Niger and Nigeria to try to stop Boko Haram’s six-year insurgency.