Cameroonian President Paul Biya (L) walks with his Nigerian
counterpart Muhammadu Buhari (R) at the airport in Yaounde, Cameroon, July 29,
2015. Cameroon has sentenced 89 members of Boko Haram to death.
Cameroon has sentenced 89
members of Nigerian militant group Boko Haram to death.
Some 850 alleged members of
Boko Haram, which pledged allegiance to the Islamic State militant group (ISIS)
in 2015, are being detained in Cameroon, according to the BBC’s Hausa service.
The executions are the first since a new anti-terror law was enacted in 2014 in
Cameroon, which is part of a multinational force along with Nigeria and others aimed
at combating the group’s spread in West Africa.
Boko Haram has been waging an
insurgency in northeast Nigeria since 2009, killing 20, 000 people and
displacing more than two million. During 2015, the group upped its activities
across Nigeria’s borders in Cameroon, Chad and Niger. Boko Haram militants have
been suspected of carrying out suicide bombings particularly in Cameroon’s
Far North region. The 89 suspects were convicted by a Cameroonian military
court for their role in various attacks in the north of the country.
Cameroon joined forces with
Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Benin in March 2015 as part of the 8,700-strong
Multi-National Joint Task Force and has conducted cross-border operations with
Nigeria’s permission. In February, the Cameroonian military said it killed more
than 150 militants and liberated a Boko Haram stronghold in the town of
Goshi in north-eastern Nigeria. The U.S. is also providing tactical support to
Cameroon—President Barack Obama pledged in October 2015 to send a total of 300
American military personnel to Cameroon to assist with providing
intelligence and planning anti-Boko Haram operations.
In a video published in January
2015, Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau threatened to attack Cameroon and
assassinate President Paul Biya unless the Francophone country abandoned its
secular constitution and embraced Islam. Biya has previously vowed to wipe out
Boko Haram and said in his New Year message in December 2015 that “not one
centimetre of our territory has been ceded to the aggressors.”