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Boko Haram kills 11 civilians in Cameroon attack

Friday April 19 2019
Attack

Members of the Cameroonian Rapid Intervention Force patrol in the far north region of the country on March 21, 2019. Boko Haram jihadists have been active in the area since 2013. PHOTO | AFP

By AFP

Boko Haram fighters torched a village in Cameroon's troubled Far North Region overnight and killed 11 civilians in their sleep, security sources told AFP on Friday.

"Boko Haram made an incursion at night in the Tchakamari area," a source close to security services in the area said, confirming a report from a member of a local self-defence militia.

It was the deadliest Boko Haram raid in recent months in Cameroon.

The bodies were "charred", the source close to security services said, adding that the attackers had burnt the village.

The dead included both children and the aged. It began at around 10pm and lasted until about 1am Friday.

The Boko Haram conflict began in 2009 in neighbouring Nigeria, in which more than 27,000 people have been killed and 1.8 million left homeless in the country's northeast.

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The violence has spilled into neighbouring Niger, Chad and Cameroon.

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