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KOBACHWA , Nigeria, Aug. 4 (UPI) -- Suspected members of terrorist group Boko Haram have attacked multiple villages in Nigeria and Cameroon, killing at least 15 people, according to reports. The militants mounted an early-morning assault on the Cameroonian village of Tchakarmari, near the northern border with Nigeria, burning houses to the ground, killing at least seven people and kidnapping several others, the BBC reports.
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Nigerian legislator Emmanuel Tsamdu meanwhile told Xinhua news agency a group of the militants on Sunday assaulted Kobachwa and other villages in the Madagali district of Adamawa state, in northeastern Nigeria.
A local self-defense militia made up of hunters and led by the former leader of the Adamawa state legislature, Umaru Finitiri, was able to break the assault and send the militants fleeing, Xinhua reports. At least eight people were killed and scores are still missing.
Boko Haram militants reportedly seized the Madagali district in August 2014, but the Nigerian military claimed to have cleared the militants out in March.
News of the attacks follow Nigerian media reports of up to 2,500 Nigerians living in Kousseri, in the far north of Cameroon, being rounded up and sent back to their country on Thursday.
The deportations were reportedly linked to security concerns about Boko Haram. They come after suicide bomb attacks, which witnesses said were perpetrated by teenage girls, killed more than 30 people in the northern Cameroonian town of Maroua. The Cameroonian military deployed an additional 2,000 troops to the area following the attack.
Last week, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, who was elected earlier this year on a pledge to crack down on Boko Haram, made his first official trip to Cameroon to meet with President Paul Biya and discuss strengthening security ties.
Boko Haram has waged war seeking an Islamic state in Nigeria since 2009. The insurgents have killed at least 17,000 people in and around northeastern Nigeria, according to Amnesty International.
The group has stepped up attacks in the region despite the formation of an 8,700-troop multinational force from Chad, Niger, Cameroon, Nigeria and Benin after months of delay.
The Nigerian military on Sunday said it used airstrikes to support ground troops who repulsed a Boko Haram attack on the village of Bita, in Borno state, and on Monday it announced Nigerian army troops had freed 178 captives of Boko Haram -- including 101 children, 67 women and 10 men -- near the town of Bama.
