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Africa Subsaharan

Gunmen kidnap 5 MSF workers in Cameroon

2022-02-26

[DW] Medical charity Doctors Without Borders has confirmed the kidnapping of five of its members in northern Cameroon
...a long, narrow country that fills the space between Nigeria and Chad on the northeast, CAR to the southeast. Prior to incursions by Boko Haram nothing ever happened there...
. The identities of the kidnappers and motive are not yet known.

A group of gunnies have kidnapped five staff members working for Doctors Without Borders, known by the French acronym MSF, in northern Cameroon.

According to a statement issued by the medical charity on Thursday night, gunnies broke into the MSF base in Fotokol, situated in the remote northern border area with neighboring Nigeria.

MOTIVE FOR KIDNAPPING UNKNOWN
"Five members of our team were taken away after the break-in. Neither the identity nor the motives of the perpetrators are known at this time," MSF told DW in an emailed response.

The organization said that its teams were "mobilized to support our five colleagues."

News agency AFP cited a local administrative official as saying that three of the aid workers are from Chad, one is from Senegal
... a nation of about 14 million on the west coast of Africa bordering Mauretania to the north, Mali to the east, and a pair of Guineas to the south, one of them Bissau. It is 90 percent Mohammedan and has more than 80 political parties. Its primary purpose seems to be absorbing refugees...
, and the fifth is French-Ivorian.

The source also said two Cameroonian security guards were among those kidnapped and that the army had launched a search for the missing members of staff.

CAMEROON'S TROUBLED NORTH
Though the identity of the kidnappers remains unknown, there have been a number of attacks targeting civilians and soldiers by Islamist groups.

Boko Haram

...not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality...
and the so-called Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems....
West Africa Province are known to launch attacks in the area including in the nearby Lake Chad region.

In September 2019, a suspected Boko Haram attack near Fotoko, claimed the lives of six Cameroonian soldiers.

In August 2021, 26 Chadian soldiers were killed while on patrol in neighboring Chad.

The violence has spawned a regional humanitarian crisis, and hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced and dispersed in neighboring countries.

MSF has been helping to assist displaced people and refugees, providing treatment to tens of thousands of people.

Coupled with the Islamist insurgency, Cameroon is also trying to tackle murderous Moslems from the country's Anglophone minority who are fighting for the establishment of a separate state.

MSF also told DW that it would only be releasing limited information on the situation at this time.

Posted by:trailing wife

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