Cameroon Vows To 'Totally Wipe Out' Boko Haram After Hostages' Release

Cameroon's President Paul Biya on Monday vowed his government would go
after the Islamist group Boko Haram "until it's totally wiped out".

"The Cameroonian government assures you that it will ceaselessly
continue to fight Boko Haram until it's totally wiped out," Biya said.

The 27 Cameroonians and Chinese were delivered to authorities on Friday night.

The government has not said how they were freed, but a security source
said that "a ransom" was paid and around 20 imprisoned Islamists were
freed in exchange.

The Chinese were seized in May from a construction camp in Waza near
the border with Nigeria in an attack that left one Cameroonian soldier
dead.

The Cameroonians -- including the wife of one of Cameroon's deputy
prime ministers -- were abducted in July during two simultaneous
assaults, also blamed on Boko Haram, in which at least 15 people died.

"We were in these sort of huts in a pretty dense forest," one of the
released Cameroonians, Seiny Boukar Lamine, told state radio.

"It was in a savannah with big trees and a lot of brush. We slept on
the ground," he said. He said he was held along with his wife and six
children.

Cameroon shares a border of more than 2,000 kilometres (1,200 miles)
with Nigeria, where Boko Haram has been waging a bloody insurgency
since 2009 in which 10,000 people have died.

The Islamist group did not claim responsibility for the kidnappings,
but it has been involved in other abductions, including that of over
200 schoolgirls in Nigeria in a case that sparked international
outrage.

Boko Haram's forays into Cameroon have prompted the government to
deploy soldiers and combat planes to the north of the country.

On October 7, Cameroon, Chad, Niger, and Nigeria agreed to dispatch
700 soldiers to target the group.