At least 15 people have been killed and several others abducted in a pre‑dawn attack on a village in Cameroon’s Far North Region, in what local sources attribute to Boko Haram or allied insurgents operating around the Lake Chad Basin.
The assault, which took place in Madegoua village near Makary in Logone‑et‑Chari Department during the night of 16–17 September, marks one of the deadliest single incidents in the area in recent months and underscores persistent insecurity despite ongoing military operations, according to Benin WebTV.
Initial accounts put the death toll at 13, but two additional victims later died from their injuries at Makary District Hospital, raising the confirmed fatalities to at least 15.
Makary Mayor Abakar Abba described the raid as the first attack of such scale on Madegoua and said defence and security forces had been deployed to secure the area and search for those missing.
Municipal officials and regional media suggested the assault could have been a reprisal for the August arrest of an alleged Boko Haram supplier in nearby Hile‑Alifa district, when gendarmes seized thousands of rounds of ammunition hidden in jerrycans. Authorities have not officially confirmed this motive, and no group has publicly claimed responsibility for the Madegoua attack.
The incident adds to a pattern of sporadic but deadly raids in Logone‑et‑Chari, one of the Cameroonian departments most exposed to violence linked to the Lake Chad Basin insurgency. Humanitarian and security assessments have repeatedly warned that the combination of climate stress, displacement and militant activity risks deepening instability in parts of the Lake Chad Basin, including northern Cameroon.
On September 14, gunmen attacked a bar in Bamenda’s Beyelle‑Nkwen neighbourhood, killing three people and injuring four others, while suspected separatist fighters abducted seven members of one family in Bangourain on September 13.
Earlier, on September 8, armed men ambushed a convoy of administrative officials and security personnel near a teacher training college in Wum, killing Principal Police Commissioner Mbah Tobie Damase and abducting five teachers in Cameroon’s English‑speaking Northwest Region. The educators were freed about 48 hours later in an operation by the elite Rapid Intervention Battalion (BIR), although some local sources alleged that a ransom may also have been paid.
