Yaounde, Cameroon (AP) – At least 12 Cameroonian soldiers were killed in an attack by Islamic militants on the border with Nigeria on Monday night, a statement from the Cameroonian Ministry of Defense said.
The attack also left more than a dozen soldiers injured and took place in the Lake Chad area near the town of Walgo, the ministry said Thursday. Although no group was initially accused of the attack, officials later said it was allegedly executed by extremists from the Boko Haram group or their disconnected faction loyal to the ISIS group.
The ministry pointed to Boko Haram militants, citing “a growing number of weapons” and “an obvious alliance with powerful transnational criminal entities” as a contribution to Monday’s attack.
Originally located in Nigeria, Boko Haram held weapons in 2009, fighting Western education and imposing its radical Islamic law. Conflict, Africa’s longest radical struggle has now poured into Nigeria’s neighbors Chad, Niger and Cameroon.
According to the United Nations in 2014, about 35,000 civilians were killed in northeast Nigeria and more than 2 million were displaced.
At least 40 people were killed in January in the Boko Haram attack on the Nigerian border.
