Suspected Boko Haram militants kill 16 in northern Cameroon

Suspected militants from Islamist group Boko Haram killed at least 16 people and wounded seven early on Sunday in a grenade attack on a camp for displaced people in northern Cameroon, a local official said.

The assailants threw a grenade into a group of sleeping people inside the camp in the village of Nguetchewe, district mayor Medjeweh Boukar told Reuters.

The camp is home to around 800 people, he said. The village is located close to the Nigerian border.

Boukar was informed by residents that 16 had died. A security official earlier said 15 had died. The wounded were taken to a nearby hospital, they said.

“The attackers arrived with a woman who carried the grenade into the camp,” Boukar said, adding that women and children were among the dead.

Over the past month there have been twenty incursions and attacks by suspected Islamist militants, Boukar said.

Boko Haram has been fighting for a decade to carve out an Islamic caliphate based in Nigeria.

The violence, which has killed an estimated 30 000 people and displaced millions, has frequently spilled over into neighbouring Cameroon, Niger and Chad.

In June last year, around 300 suspected Boko Haram militants swarmed onto an island on Lake Chad in Cameroon’s far north and killed 24 people, including 16 Cameroonian soldiers stationed at military outposts.