Boko Haram stages attacks in Cameroon, Nigeria

Suspected Boko Haram fighters from Nigeria kidnapped around 80 people, most of them children, and killed three others on Sunday in a cross-border attack on villages in northern Cameroon, army and government officials said.

"According to our initial information, around 30 adults, most of them herders, and 50 young girls and boys aged between 10 and 15 years were abducted," a senior army officer deployed to northern Cameroon told Reuters.

In a separate attack in Nigeria, a suicide bomber killed four people and injured 35 others in the northeast town of Potiskum on Sunday, according to a Nigerian media outlet.

The Cameroon attack occurred in Mabass village, in the Far North region, Issa Tchiroma Bakary said. He said 80 houses were destroyed and "between 30 and 50" people were believed to have been abducted.

"We are dealing with barbaric people, lawless people," Bakary said. "Nothing can prevent them from assassinating."

The group, which has killed thousands and kidnapped hundreds in its bid to carve out an Islamic state in northern Nigeria, has also targeted Cameroon and Niger over the past year as it seeks to expand its zone of operations.

Sunday's kidnappings, among the largest abductions on Cameroonian soil, came as neighboring Chad deployed troops to support Cameroon's forces in the area.

A convoy of troops from Chad arrived in Maroua, the main town in Cameroon's Far-North Region, to support the fight against Boko Haram, late on Saturday, Cameroon defense ministry spokesman Colonel Didier Badjeck said.

Chad has a reputation as one of the region's best militaries and helped French forces drive Al-Qaeda-linked fighters from northern Mali in 2013. Government officials in N'Djamena say the deployment to Cameroon includes around 2,000 soldiers, armored vehicles and attack helicopters.

In a video posted online this month, a man claiming to be Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau threatened to step up violence in neighboring Cameroon unless it scraps its constitution and embraces its interpretation Islam.

Faced with increased violence along the border, Yaounde has deployed thousands of additional troops, including elite soldiers, to the area.

Wire services