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More Than 100 Boko Haram, Captives Surrender Along Cameroon-Nigeria Border

Moki Edwin Kindzeka

   MAROUA, CAMEROON - More than 100 Boko Haram and their captives, almost
   all Nigerians, have fled the group in the past two weeks, according to
   the Multinational Joint Task Force fighting the Islamist militants.

   Thirty-four-year-old Nigerian Kharim Kalga is among 109 people who have
   surrendered to the task force since late July.

   Kalga said he has not seen his two wives and five children in the two
   years since he joined the Islamist militant group because they kept him
   captive.

   He said he was living in poverty when Boko Haram fighters promised to
   give him a motorcycle to earn money for his family, so he joined the
   group. He said he was forced to steal cattle and millet from villages
   surrounding the militant group's camp in Nigeria. Kalga said he
   surrendered to the military because Boko Haram did not fulfill its
   promise to give him a motorcycle.

   The task force is holding the former Boko Haram fighters and captives
   at their base in Cameroon's northern town of Mora, near the border with
   Nigeria.

   Among them are 45 Nigerian and three Cameroonian former fighters, 45
   Nigerian children and 16 women who were being used as sex slaves.

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