2-IN-1 STORY: Four Militants Detonate Suicide Bombs On Lake Chad Island

Four militants detonated suicide bombs after being found out by a group of locals on a Lake Chad island, killing three of the attackers but no one else, official and security sources said on Wednesday.

The maze of islands and waterways on the shrinking shores of Lake Chad are a favourite hiding place for Islamist Boko Haram fighters who are mostly based in neighbouring Nigeria's northeast but often cross into Chad, Niger and Cameroon.

Reuters report continues:

The bombers were part of a group of seven male and female militants headed from Chad's Yogo island to a weekly market in the lakeside town of Bol in a motorized canoe late on Tuesday, the sources said.

"They were intercepted by villagers who wanted to search them and they resisted," said a local official who asked not to be named. "The three others managed to swim away," he said, saying they first shed the explosives they were carrying.

Nigerians on the island of Choua in Chad's inaccessible lac region. Photo: UNICEF/Guy Yogo

Dozens of people were killed in multiple bombings in the nearby town of Baga Sola in October and the Lake Chad island of Koulfoua in December. Chad has since declared a state of emergency in the region.

In Cameroon's Far North Region, several suspected Boko Haram fighters attacked three food trucks near the Chadian border on Wednesday, officials said. Cameroonian Special Forces (BIR) arrived shortly afterwards and there were no deaths or injuries.

Nigerians: Cameroon Troops Chase Insurgents, Kill 70

Meanwhile Associated Press reports that Cameroonian troops have killed at least 70 residents while chasing Islamic insurgents in the Gwoza area of Borno state in northeastern Nigeria, fleeing villagers said.

Troops entered Kirawa-Jimni village on Sunday, asked where were Boko Haram insurgents and started shooting, residents said.

"We didn't know what was going on but the Cameroonian troops suddenly appeared and began to ask us for Boko Haram terrorists," said Muhammed Abba, a resident of the village and deputy commander of a local group of civilians set up to fight the extremists in Gwoza. "Before we could say a word, they started firing. That scared most of us and we began to run."

Abba said that when people returned Monday, they found 70 corpses littering the ground.

The Borno state spokesman for a civilian self-defense group, Abbas Gava, confirmed the reports, saying he received calls from residents of Ashigashiya village near the border with Cameroon.

"They said the soldiers were in hot pursuit of the Boko Haram terrorists who ran into Kirawa-Jimni," he said.

Cameroon's military spokesman Col. Didier Badjeck on Wednesday denied that troops shot at civilians, saying Cameroon and Nigerian soldiers are carrying out raids against Boko Haram.

"We know the terrorists are hiding and taking revenge on armless civilians but we are protecting them," he said.

Kirawa-Jimni is a border community near Cameroon. Many Gwoza residents who had fled to Maiduguri and Yola say insurgents are still very present there.

Nigerian refugees said Cameroonian troops also chased Boko Haram fighters into Nigerian territory on Nov. 30, killing at least 150 people.

Cameroon's government then denied the charges, saying the military is trained to respect human rights. It said an operation around that time freed 900 people held by extremists in the Lake Chad area.