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Cameroonian authorities have arrested a key Boko Haram negotiator who helped free the French, the Chinese, the priests and many others, including the wife of the country’s Vice-Prime Minister who had been captured by the terrorists in the country’s far north.
Local newspaper, L’Oeil du Sahel, said Mr. Abdallah, the man who negotiated with Boko Haram for the liberation of the Moulin-Fournier family, the three priests kidnapped in Tchere, the Chinese workers abducted in Waza, and the 17 hostages that included the wife of the Vice Prime Minister, Mr. Amadou Ali, has been arrested in Yaoundé, the capital of Cameroon.
Boko Haram has stepped up attacks in Cameroon and Nigeria in recent months, killing hundreds of people, burning women and children alive and sending many away from their homes.
At least 25,000 people have been killed in Nigeria since 2009 while more than 1300 have been murdered in Cameroon since 2013. More than 2.5 million people have also been displaced and hundreds of thousands of children have been forced out of school. This is in addition to the thousands who have been kidnapped, including the Chibok girls taken into the Sambisa forest two years ago from their school in Chibok, Nigeria.
They have remained in captivity ever since despite promises that they will be freed.
Many had argued that intelligence gathering could bring to an end the war against Boko Haram, a ruthless group that pledged allegiance to the Islamic State in March last year and has since modelled its barbarism after the Middle East killers.
It is believed that Boko Haram has about 10, 000 fighters mainly based in the Sambisa forest from where they launch deadly attacks on Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad and Niger.
The Nigerian Army is yet to gain access into the forest, which is about 60, 000 square kilometre or 18 times the size of Nigeria’s most populous state of Lagos.
