Three aid workers, a Franco-Ivorian, a Senegalese and a Chadian, as well as two Cameroonian security guards were kidnapped, said a local administration official, who requested anonymity.
“There is nothing to link this act to the attacks of Boko Haram. We don’t know if it was a simple theft gone wrong. A safe has been opened,” he added, adding that the army is looking for them. “Neither the identity nor the motives of the perpetrators are known to date,” MSF also said.
The Cameroonian authorities indiscriminately call the group of the same name from Nigeria Boko Haram or its dissident branch of Iswap, which has pledged allegiance to IS.
Regular attacks
Fotokol, in the Far North of Cameroon, is near Lake Chad, a vast expanse of water and swamps that stretches its shores into four countries: Chad, Niger, Cameroon and Nigeria. Boko Haram and Iswap have set up their hideouts in some of the countless islets that dot the lake. Jihadists regularly carry out attacks against soldiers and civilians in the four countries in this area. They have multiplied in recent months, with armed groups taking advantage of their knowledge of this marshy terrain.
Iswap has consolidated its grip on these territories in recent months in the region after the death of Abubakar Shekau, the leader of Boko Haram, in fighting between the two rival groups.