Cameroon sentences 89 Boko Haram fighters to death

Cameroon has sentenced 89 members of Nigerian Islamist militant group Boko Haram to death, local media report.

                They were convicted on terror charges by a military court for their roles in several attacks in Cameroon's northern region which borders Nigeria.

                Cameroon passed an anti-terror law in 2014 which introduced the death sentence.

This is the first time the death sentenced has been used since that law was passed.

                The 89 are among 850 people arrested in Cameroon on charges connected to Boko Haram.

                Following the death sentences, a local human rights group has called for reforms in Cameroon's justice system.

                Hundreds of people have been killed in a spate of attacks in Cameroon since it joined a regional task force set up to tackle the militants last year. Boko Haram has since 2009, waged an insurgency in northeast Nigeria killing some 20,000 people and displacing more than two million. During 2015, the group intensified its activities across Nigeria’s borders in Cameroon, Chad and Niger.

                Boko Haram militants have been suspected of carrying out suicide bombings particularly in Cameroon’s Far North region.

                Cameroon joined forces with Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Benin in March 2015 as part of the 8,700-strong Multi-National Joint Task Force and has conducted cross-border operations with Nigeria’s permission.

                In February, the Cameroonian military said it killed more than 150 militants and liberated a Boko Haram stronghold in the town of Goshi in northeastern Nigeria.

                The U.S. is also providing tactical support to Cameroon—President Barack Obama pledged in October 2015 to send a total of 300 American military personnel to Cameroon to assist with providing intelligence and planning anti-Boko Haram operations. Some 850 alleged members of Boko Haram, that pledges allegiance to the Islamic State militant group (ISIS), are currently being detained in Cameroon, according to the BBC’s Hausa service.

                The death sentence is the first since a new anti-terror law was enacted in 2014 in Cameroon.

                In a video published in January 2015, Boko Haram leader AbubakarShekau threatened to attack Cameroon and assassinate President Paul Biya unless the Francophone country abandoned its secular constitution and embraced Islam. Biya has previously vowed to wipe out Boko Haram and said in his New Year message in December 2015 that “not one centimeter of our territory has been ceded to the aggressors.”