Four civilians were killed and four others wounded in an extremist attack on Wednesday night on the Tourou township of Mokolo in the Far North region of Cameroon.

The attackers were thought to be members of the Jamā’at Ahl as-Sunnah lid-Da’way Wa’l-Jihād (JAS), more commonly referred to as Boko Haram.

Vohot Deguime, the mayor of the township, which is close to the Nigerian border, said: “On Wednesday at about 8pm, Boko Haram terrorists arrived in the Tourou township and killed three men and a woman by bullets and wounded four others before leaving for Nigeria.”

The mayor said the attack targeted Mont Roum Toufou1, a village on the edge of the Mandara Mountains close to the Nigerian border.

He said the attackers had probably been hiding in the mountains.

The Mandara Mountains, which serve as the natural border between Cameroon and Nigeria, are also known to be a refuge for the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) – an offshoot from the JAS.

The Mokolo area and the entire Far North region has been the exposed to deadly raids by Nigerian insurgents – both the JAS and ISWAP – since 2014.

Farmers, fishermen and wood cutters are regularly killed in the region in retaliation by the JAS and ISWAP, who accuse them of passing on information about their position to the Cameroonian army.