[b]Suspected Boko Haram Islamist fighters from Nigeria kidnapped about 80 people and killed three others in north Cameroon.

A senior army officer said: “Around 30 adults and 50 girls and boys aged between 10 and 15 were abducted.”

Chad has deployed troops to support forces in Mabass, where soldiers exchanged fire with the raiders for about two hours.

The scale of the abduction is among the largest in Cameroon since the militants began cross-border attacks last year.

A senior army officer 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."

He said the early-morning attack had targeted the village of Mabass and several other villages along the porous border with Nigeria.

Soldiers intervened and exchanged fire with the raiders for around two hours, he added.

Government spokesman Issa Tchiroma confirmed the attack, in which he said three people had been killed, as well as the kidnappings, but was not able to say with certainty how many people had been taken in the raid.

Around 80 homes were destroyed, he said.

In April last year more than 270 schoolgirls were abducted from their school in Chibok.

While 53 escaped shortly after, and another four managed to break free in May, the fate of the other 219 remains unknown.[/b]

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/boko-haram-fighters-believed-kidnapped-5001347