Empty streets, body searches and tips to police embody the fear that Boko Haram has instilled in northern Cameroon, where they killed more than 40 people in suicide bombings in July.<\/p>\n
Raiders from the Nigerian sect later kidnapped 135 villagers and killed eight others in a pre-dawn strike across the border last Tuesday, police and local sources said.<\/p>\n
Boko Haram has attacked villages in Cameroon\u2019s Extreme North region for about two years, but the horrific bombings mark a change of tactics, while Cameroonian troops have joined a regional force to tackle the Islamists.<\/p>\n
The suicide bombers can be young women and even teenage girls, who behave like locals and blend in at crowded places to cause maximum casualties.<\/p>\n
Residents of Maroua, the main town in the Extreme North, were spared until successive blasts tore though the bustling central market and a bar on July 22 and 25. Those bombs killed 33 people and wounded dozens more.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re very worried and no longer know where to turn,\u201d says Albert, a worried father.<\/p>\n
\u201cShould we send the children to school when the next school year starts?\u201d he ponders. \u201cBoko Haram is against Western education and may very well carry out attacks on schools.\u201d<\/p>\n
The sect\u2019s name loosely translates as \u201cWestern education is forbidden\u201d, and Boko Haram notoriously abducted 276 Nigerian schoolgirls in April last year.<\/p>\n
Some managed to escape but more than 200 are believed to be held in the large Sambisa forest, where the Nigerian army this week said it had freed 178 captives.<\/p>\n
\u2018People like you and me\u2019\u00a0<\/strong> \u201cWhen you see somebody who isn\u2019t familiar in the neighbourhood, you call the police,\u201d says Oumarou, who works for a Maroua logistics firm. Information Minister Issa Tchiroma Bakary has meanwhile heaped praise on an astute taxi-motorcycle driver who turned in a 15-year-old boy carrying explosives last week.<\/p>\n The driver found the teen was behaving suspiciously and decided to drive him to a police station, where he was detained. Two other suspects were picked up.<\/p>\n \u201cTheir objective was to blow up inside a mosque,\u201d Bakary said. Sources in the security forces believe that Boko Haram infiltrators and sympathisers have operated in Maroua for months, relaying information to their chiefs. Bus terminals catering for southern destinations, notably big cities like Douala and the capital Yaounde, are closely watched. Passengers are always frisked as they board their coaches.<\/p>\n \u201cYou feel the threat most because of all the checkpoints on the roads,\u201d says Olivier, a young French expatriate in Douala. \u2018We no longer know who\u2019s who\u2019<\/strong> \u201cPeople have been very ill at ease since there were suicide attacks\u201d in the north, trader Abdoulaye Sani says.<\/p>\n \u201cWe no longer know who\u2019s who. I\u2019m afraid when I\u2019m walking\u2026 I\u2019m afraid that something will happen, that a bomb will explode and take me with it,\u201d adds the young man.<\/p>\n In one working-class district with a large Muslim community, police last week used strong-arm tactics during searches of houses and mosques. They rounded up several dozen people, according to the local media.<\/p>\n The information minister said that security forces were carrying out a sweep in several parts of the country, which led to the arrest of \u201cmany suspects\u201d.<\/p>\n But such assurances fail to reassure.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t go to parties, we avoid places where there is too much of a crowd,\u201d says Darly, an adolescent in the capital.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re afraid that the suicide bombers will come here to Yaounde,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n –<\/p>\n Source: Vanguard<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Empty streets, body searches and tips to police embody the fear that Boko Haram has instilled in northern Cameroon, where they killed more than 40 people in suicide bombings in July. Raiders from the Nigerian sect later kidnapped 135 villagers and killed eight others in a pre-dawn strike across the border last Tuesday, police and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":141719,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[14],"yoast_head":"\n
\nBoko Haram has frequently massacred students in northeastern Nigeria during an insurgency with the aim of establishing an Islamic caliphate, at a cost of at least 15,000 lives since 2009.<\/p>\n
\nHe has sent his family away to Douala, Cameroon\u2019s economic capital on the Atlantic, more than 1,300 kilometres (810 miles) away.<\/p>\n
\nSecurity has been tightened repeatedly in Maroua. When the market closes at 5:00 pm, \u201ceverybody goes home. There is nobody left on the streets apart from the soldiers,\u201d Oumarou says.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cThey are people like you and me,\u201d a Cameroonian army officer says. \u201cIt\u2019s almost impossible to identify them.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\u201cThe police have tightened up their searches. They make us empty our cars completely, and our bags.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nIn Yaounde, police and troops are omnipresent.<\/p>\n