Boko Haram militants have seized control of a Nigerian town after soldiers deployed there fled to take refuge across the border in nearby Cameroon, police and locals said on Tuesday.
“Boko Haram fighters moved into Ashigashya” unchallenged by law enforcement overnight Monday, where they slaughtered three people in front of a church, a Cameroon police source told AFP on condition of anonymity.
Boko Haram has in recent weeks switched tactics from hit-and-run attacks to attempting to seize and hold territory and have proclaimed one captured town, Gwoza, as part of an “Islamic caliphate.”