Ten civilians killed in Boko Haram attack in Chad

Boko Haram jihadists killed at least 10 civilians and kidnapped seven others in an attack on a village in the troubled Lake Chad region on Friday, an army officer and local official said.

"At around 3 am (0200 GMT), Boko Haram fighters attacked the Tenana village killing two women and eight men," the officer told AFP on condition of anonymity. "They kidnapped seven men, as well as looting and burning the village before withdrawing," he added.

Lake Chad – a marshy region dotted with islands near the border of Niger, Nigeria and Cameroon – has been battered by attacks from jihadists crossing from Nigeria.

A local prefect, Yacoub Mahamat Seitchimi, confirmed the attack, saying he sent a sub-prefect and a police chief to the village to "sympathise with the bereaved families". "These are the disgruntled local children who prey on their own parents," he said, referring to Boko Haram recruiting from the area.

Boko Haram's insurgency, launched in northeast Nigeria in 2009, has killed more than 36,000 people and displaced more than two million from their homes. The violence has since spread to Niger, Chad and Cameroon. In March, Chad's armed forces suffered their biggest single-day loss, when 98 soldiers were massacred in their base at Bohoma, on the banks of Lake Chad.

In response, President Idriss Deby launched an offensive from 31 March to 3 April, declaring at its end that there was "not a single jihadist left" in the Lake Chad region. But sporadic violence has continued, with an attack attributed to Boko Haram on an army vehicle earlier this month killing eight Chad soldiers.  (AFP)