Young guns: Cameroon's Boko Haram problem
Freelance journalist based in Cameroon, and regular IRIN contributor
Author NotePart of a special project exploring violent extremism in Nigeria and the Sahel
MAROUA, 11 August 2017
Moustapha Bachir was watching a World Cup qualifying match in a bar when Boko Haram rolled into Amchide, in Cameroon’s Far North region. By the time they left, the jihadists had killed 30 people and torched homes and businesses.
Bachir, 22, didn’t recognise any of the gunmen - he was too busy escaping - and neither did he expect to. Boko Haram was a largely Nigerian insurgent group, committed to a hardline Islamist solution to Nigeria’s perceived ills.
Boko Haram had arrived in Amchide in a convoy of pick-ups, and fled back across the common border the same day when Cameroon’s Rapid Intervention Battalion showed up.
Freelance journalist based in Cameroon, and regular IRIN contributor
Author NotePart of a special project exploring violent extremism in Nigeria and the Sahel
MAROUA, 11 August 2017
Moustapha Bachir was watching a World Cup qualifying match in a bar when Boko Haram rolled into Amchide, in Cameroon’s Far North region. By the time they left, the jihadists had killed 30 people and torched homes and businesses.
Bachir, 22, didn’t recognise any of the gunmen - he was too busy escaping - and neither did he expect to. Boko Haram was a largely Nigerian insurgent group, committed to a hardline Islamist solution to Nigeria’s perceived ills.
Boko Haram had arrived in Amchide in a convoy of pick-ups, and fled back across the common border the same day when Cameroon’s Rapid Intervention Battalion showed up.
