Boko Haram Threat Spreading Across West Africa

By Alex Crawford, Special Correspondent, in Cameroon

Cameroon has warned that Boko Haram militancy is spreading across West African nations much like the ISIS fundamentalism terrorising Syria and Iraq.

Lieutenant Colonel Didier Badjeck, Cameroon's defence ministry spokesman, told Sky News the militant Islamic sect could only be stopped by the combined efforts of Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad and Niger - as well as more international involvement.

Sky News was given exclusive access to Cameroon's elite military rapid response unit, the Battalion D'Intervention Rapide (BIR) and travelled to the north of the country to see the soldiers' operations on the border with Nigeria.

A multi-national team is still hunting more than 200 schoolgirls kidnapped by the sect from their school in Chibok in north-east Nigeria on April 14.

The schoolgirls are thought to have been split up into several groups and some intelligence sources fear that at least one of the groups may have been smuggled across the border and into Cameroon.

Hundreds of Cameroon's top soldiers have been sent to the border to hunt for the missing girls and curb the Boko Haram militancy.

Boko Haram militants have hit border communities in Cameroon

The militants repeatedly attack border communities, destroying schools and burning homes inside Cameroon.

The huge border, which is more than 2,000km (1,243 miles) long, is porous and, from our evidence, exceedingly difficult to police.

The terrain is rocky, in some cases mountainous, undeveloped and remote.

Even with hundreds of troops stationed along it, they appear to be having limited success.

A number of the border villages have been abandoned by terrified communities who have fled inland.

Nigerians have fled Africa's largest economy to take refuge in impoverished neighbouring Cameroon. In Camp Minawao, about 5,000 Nigerians are taking shelter.

Sky's Cameroonian translator shook his head in disbelief as he saw the refugees for the first time with us.

Refugee Aga Musa told Sky News he had crossed over the border with his eight children because in Nigeria "there was no-one to protect us" from Boko Haram.

In the camp, the children run to school.

In the north east of Nigeria where many have fled from - the schools have been closed because of the insecurity caused by Boko Haram (which means Western education is forbidden).

In this refugee camp in Cameroon, the children can learn in safety - or they have done so far.

Musa Lava, who has spent a year in the camp and who is one of the team of teachers there, begged the soldiers to guard them.

He said: "We are worried the militants are going to come here.

"They are spreading and they are going to come here soon too."

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