[VOA News] Kidnappings, an influx of refugees and an increase fighting and criminal acts in Cameroon's border communities have raised concerns about Nigeria's 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...
insurgency.
Cameroonians in northern communities that share a boundary with Nigeria's Borno state, the base of the Boko Haram hard boy group, are worried the violent group has extended its reach into Cameroon.
Nurse Mary Nana, 31, told VOA she was preparing to leave the border locality of Fotokol after four Cameroonians were killed and some 3,000 Nigerians crossed over to her area following last week's attack on a market by suspected Boko Haram members.
"I am very much aware of the fact that they [Boko Haram] are here so the insecurity is just too much," she said. "I am very very afraid. I think if there is a possibility of leaving even this day as I am talking [I would be happy]. The insecurity is just too much."
Secondary school teacher John Che says insecurity has increased in North Cameroon where he works because of the belief that Boko Haram Death Eaters are in the area.
"The security situation of this region is questionable," Che said. "We don't know who is who because the Boko Haram guys are at our door steps."
Fonka Awah Augustine, the governor of Far North Cameroon, says the cause of the public's anxiety is apparent.
"Our problems come from our neighbors," he noted. " Each time the Nigerian army attacks, Boko Haram becomes destabilized and they are looking for a safe ground to settle, and each time Boko Haram equally attacks either the army or a particular community they cause the flow of the population in their thousands into our region. [far north Cameroon]."
Augustine says he banned movements from dusk to dawn on cycle of violences, which are a widely used means of transportation in North Cameroon, because Boko Haram members have been using them to cause havoc.
"All the kidnappings and the attacks were done with the complicity of cycle of violences," he said. "So we feel that cycle of violences are really becoming a source of trouble and they are being used as an instrument to cause disorder and trouble in this region."