A pickup loaded with Chadian troops crosses the bridge into Gambaru to reinforce their peers locked in an hours-long heavy exchange of gunfire with Boko Haram fighters.
A suspected terrorist attempts to cross the El Beid River, which separates Gambaru from Fotokol in Cameroon, but is hit by a bullet from a Cameroonian soldier.
That battle took place on February 11, but “fighting here has become a daily occurrence,” says Maj. Nlate Ebale of the Rapid Intervention Battalion — known as BIR — of the Cameroon military.
Earlier this month, Boko Haram militants attacked Fotokol, burning churches, mosques and homes. They also slaughtered youths who resisted joining them. Almost 100 people died in the attack, said Col. Jacob Kodji, commander of the 4th Inter-Military Region.
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Cameroon security sources say that Boko Haram attacks villages “to steal food, carry out forced marriages on the girls they kidnap; forcefully recruit children who are later brainwashed to joining their hate doctrine, as well as steal weapons.”
Porous borders ease their incursions into Cameroon.
A spokesman for the Cameroon Defense Ministry, Col. Didier Badjeck, says that since the war began some two years ago, Cameroon has killed more than 2,000 Boko Haram fighters and lost about 100 soldiers.
