Cameroon's army claimed on Tuesday to have killed more than 40 Boko
Haram fighters who tried to storm a strategic border crossing from
Nigeria.
Heavily armed fighters "attempted to cross the bridge at Fotokol" in
the extreme north of the country and opened fire on Cameroonian
soldiers, the ministry of defence told state radio.
"Cameroon defence forces energetically reacted to this assault which
lasted three hours," the ministry said, adding that one soldier was
wounded by mortar shrapnel.
There was no independent confirmation of the battle.
Gamboru Ngala, the Nigerian town on the other side of the bridge, fell
to the Islamist extremists last week after they reportedly overran the
Nigerian garrison there.
For several days people living in towns and villages in northeast
Nigeria recently captured by Boko Haram have been fleeing towards
Cameroon to escape the militants.
The extremists, who have waged a bloody insurgency for five years in
northern Nigeria, seem to have changed tactics in recent months, going
from spectacular kidnappings, massacres and suicide attacks to
attempting to conquer territory.
Cameroon's Defence Ministry said that 246 Nigerian soldiers and
customs officials who had fled Gamboru Ngala into Cameroon to escape
the Boko Haram offensive "have left the Fotokol area under military
escort" to rejoin their units in Banki in Nigeria.
Several hundred Nigerian soldiers abandoned border posts further to
the south along the long and isolated border last week in face of the
militants' advance, military sources said.
The Nigerian army denied its troops had fled into Cameroon, instead
calling the retreat a "tactical manoeuvre".
AFP
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