Five MSF workers abducted in Cameroon

Five workers with the French medical charity MSF have been kidnapped in Cameroon's Far North

the members of the medical team were taken away in the night by Armed men in Fotokol, near the border with Nigeria, on Thursday.

the assailants took hostage three MSF staff, a Chadian, a Senegalese and a French-Ivorian, as well as the two Cameroonian guards.

The Far North touches on the marshlands of the Lake Chad region, where Boko Haram jihadists and militants from the rival Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) are notorious for attacks on troops and civilians.

In September 2019, six Cameroonian soldiers were killed near Fotokol by suspected Boko Haram members.

The army has launched a search for the five, but cautioned that there was "no evidence" yet "to connect this incident to (jihadist) attacks."

In addition to jihadist attacks in the north, Cameroon is struggling with an insurgency in two western regions, where militants among the country's anglophone minority have launched a campaign for a separate state.