Nigerian troops killed at least 50 suspected Boko Haram Islamists retreating into neighboring Cameroon following a Dec. 20 attack on a military base in the northeastern town of Bama, the army said.
Fifteen soldiers and five civilians were killed and more than 20 vehicles transporting escaping insurgents were destroyed in the battle, said Chris Olukolade, a defense headquarters spokesman in Abuja, the capital.
“Although a good number of the insurgents escaped with bullet wounds while some have been arrested, over 50 of them died in the course of exchange of fire with ground troops in the ongoing operations to apprehend fleeing terrorists,” he said.
Scores of insurgents with pick-up vehicles fitted with guns and armed with rocket-propelled grenades attacked the army barracks in Bama on Dec. 20. Troops backed by the air force repelled that attack and went in pursuit of the attackers.
Boko Haram, which means “Western education is a sin” in northern Nigeria’s Hausa language, has carried out gun and bomb attacks in the country’s mainly Muslim north and Abuja in the past four years in a campaign to impose Islamic law in Africa’s biggest oil producer. President Goodluck Jonathan declared a state of emergency in May in Borno and two other northeastern states where the group is most active.
The group carried out a similar assault on a military base in the northeast city of Maiduguri on Dec. 2, leaving 24 attackers dead, with three military aircraft and two helicopters destroyed by the militants, according to the military.
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