No less than two Cameroonian soldiers who were deployed to Nigeria have been killed.

They were killed on Saturday in an attack by Boko Haram militants outside Wulgo town in Borno state.

According to military sources, the insurgents who came on foot and in several trucks fitted with machine guns, attacked both Nigerian soldiers as well as Cameroonian soldiers deployed from across the border to assist.

The military sources, who spoke with AFP said, “Two CDF (Cameroonian Defence Force) soldiers were killed in the 40-minute gunfight with the Boko Haram terrorists.

“Another three CDF soldiers and a Nigerian soldier were injured in the fight.”

A second military source revealed that an armoured vehicle belonging to the Nigerian army and two Boko Haram trucks were destroyed in the fight while some jihadists were “neutralised”.

The jihadists launched the attack from the nearby Wulgo forest, a known Boko Haram hideout.

Boko Haram and its splinter group ISWAP, the Islamic State West Africa Province, have killed 36,000 people in northeast Nigeria and displaced around two million from their homes since 2009, according to the United Nations.

SaharaReporters recall that militants from the Islamic State-backed faction of Boko Haram, the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), formerly known as Jamā’at Ahl as-Sunnah lid-Da’wah wa’l-Jihād, last week released pictures of 15 soldiers killed by the group during an ambush on Nigerian soldiers in Monguno, Borno state.

In a statement, ISWAP claimed its members killed 33 soldiers during the attack. 

The group also released pictures showing an abducted soldier and vehicles captured from the Nigerian army and Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF).