23 killed in Boko Haram attack in Cameroon

At least 23 people were killed in a Boko Haram at­tack in the Mozo­go district in Cameroon’s Far North Region, an of­ficial said.

The regional governor, Mijiyawa Bakary, con­firmed the attack by the Nigeria-based Islamist militants, but did not give further details. “We are still gathering the facts from our divisional officers, but what we know for now is that the attackers killed at least 23 people. The damage could be more,” he said.

The attackers also burned down a village, security forces told CNN. A soldier on the front who did not want to be named told CNN by phone that the insurgents carried out a similar attack along the Waza-Mora high­way on Friday, killing one Cameroonian soldier.

The soldier said “a cor­poral was killed and three soldiers were wounded. The attackers also confiscated a (Toyota) Land Cruiser belonging to the Camer­oon military.” Earlier this month, the country’s state-run broadcaster CRTV reported that 116 Boko Haram fighters and one Cameroonian soldier were killed during an attack that the militant group launched against a military column in northern Cameroon.

And in May, Boko Ha­ram militants kidnapped 10 Chinese road construction workers in Waza, just miles from the border with Nige­ria, and killed one worker. The hostages were freed in October. Boko Haram has terrorized northern Nigeria regularly since 2009, attack­ing police, schools, church­es and civilians, and bomb­ing government buildings.

The Islamist group con­sidered one of the world’s most deadly terrorist orga­nizations has said its aim is to impose a stricter enforce­ment of sharia law across Nigeria, which is split be­tween a majority Muslim north and a mostly Chris­tian south.

Increasingly, it has crossed into northern Cam­eroon, attacking military forces, as well as kidnap­ping foreign nationals. But there is no firm evidence the group has ambitions be­yond Nigeria.