Villagers in southern Cameroon say armed men crossed the border from Nigeria and killed at least seven government troops and displaced civilians from about 15 villages. Civilians say they believe the attackers are members of a militant group.
Villagers in the Akwaya district on Cameroon’s border with Nigeria’s Taraba state say several hundred armed men crossed the Moon River two times this week and launched deadly attacks on their villages.
The Moon River lies to the south on Cameroon's border with Nigeria. Villagers say the water level has dropped significantly this dry season, making it easy to cross by foot.
The villagers say the first attack was on Thursday, when armed men suspected to be ethnic Fulani from Nigeria entered their villages and started shooting indiscriminately in the air, torching houses and threatening to kill civilians.
Cameroon's military says that it fought back and that the attackers retreated after several fighters were killed.
Agwa Linus Tarnonge, traditional ruler of Bakinjaw village in Akwaya district, said villagers were surprised that the men returned on Friday, more heavily armed than they were on Thursday.
"In the cause of gun fire exchanges, some of those armed Fulani suffered casualties, and then the remaining ones retreated and came back with an overwhelming population [number of fighters], and with more sophisticated rifles,” Tarnonge told VOA by phone from Akwaya. “They attacked our [Cameroon] military contingent that is lodged at the chief's palace in Bakinjaw, and killed five military and two gendarmes."
The Cameroon military said it lost five troops during the confrontation. Villagers say two government troops sustained injuries and died while being rushed to a hospital for treatment.
Many civilians were injured, and it is too early to determine if some villagers died because of the difficult access to Akwaya, the Cameroon military says.
Aka Martin Tyoga, a lawmaker and member of Cameroon's National Assembly from Akwaya, said this week's attacks are the latest in a series of what he called attempts by Nigerian militant groups to seize that area of Cameroon.
“We have asked the people to move away from the border area to the center, where we have the military that has been there since,” Tyoga said. “We are pleading that the government should send more forces [military] because these people [armed men] come en masse; they came in 300. Their mode of operating is like Boko Haram. They enter the community and just start killing people, burning down houses."
No group has claimed responsibility, but Cameroonian government officials and Akwaya residents believe a Nigerian militant group wants to occupy the area. Cameroonian officials said troops have been deployed to the border with Nigeria around Akwaya for a search-and-rescue operation, but they have not said how many have been deployed.
The Cameroonian government says it is working in collaboration with Nigerian authorities to stop the border attacks but gave no details. VOA could not independently verify if Cameroon has contacted Nigerian authorities to either investigate the origin of the armed group or collaborate with forces of the neighboring state to fight the suspected militants.
Nigeria has been attempting to stop the proliferation of militant groups in its territory since 2009, when fighting between Nigerian government troops and Boko Haram militants degenerated into an armed conflict and spread to Cameroon, Niger and Chad.
Several bombings and deadly attacks have taken place in Nigeria’s Taraba state since 2022 that were claimed by Islamic State West Africa Province or ISWAP. In 2021, Cameroon, Nigeria, Chad and Niger said ISWAP was emerging as the terrorist group taking over from Boko Haram, which was weakened by the death of its leader, Aboubakar Shekau, in May of that year.
