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Boko Haram Raids Displace Thousands More in Cameroon

Moki Edwin Kindzeka

   MORA - New Boko Haram attacks have displaced more than 3,000 people
   along Cameroon's northern border with Nigeria in the past three months.
   Authorities say the Nigerian Islamist militants torched houses,
   abducted, raped and looted, creating panic among villagers.

   Twenty-seven-year-old Cameroonian Alidda Mannodi is getting help from
   the Association of Muslim Women in the northern town of Mora, on
   Nigeria's border, after escaping from Boko Haram.

   Last week, she managed to flee the border village of Touski, where the
   Islamist militants were holding her captive as a sex slave.

   She said at the first opportunity she fled a hut in the bush, where she
   was repeatedly raped by several men. Mannodi said she told one of the
   men that she was menstruating, but the man still raped her.

   Mannodi said she trekked for three hours before getting help from a
   Nigerian fuel vendor, who brought her to Mora. She said she was among
   12 people Boko Haram abducted from her village - some for a second
   time.

   The Association of Muslim Women is treating her and 16 other women who
   escaped Boko Haram in recent months.

   Cameroon's military said the Islamist militants have in the past three
   months stepped up raids on villages along the border.

   Midjiyawa Bakari, the governor of Cameroon's far north region, said the
   terrorists cross over from Nigeria in groups of 10 to 20, torch houses,
   abduct civilians, and steal livestock and grain.

   He asked villagers to help inform Cameroon security forces of attacks.

   "We have to call upon the population to help to bring information, to
   work hand-in-hand with forces of law and civil authorities and, by that
   way, it is obvious that the results will be there," he said.

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