Kidnappings have surged across Cameroon’s Far North region in 2026, with at least 177 people abducted since January and more than 300 taken between April and June alone, a 118% jump over the same period last year, according to the Africa Center for Strategic Studies and the risk-analysis group ACAPS.
The violence is concentrated in the border districts of Mayo-Tsanaga, Mayo-Sava and Logone-et-Chari, where armed groups linked to Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province operate alongside criminal gangs drawn from Cameroon, Nigeria, Niger and Chad. On June 2, fighters attacked the village of Afade, abducting six civilians, including two women and two children, in one of several raids that have hit communities along the frontier this year.
What has changed is the motive. For years, kidnapping in the region followed a grim but predictable pattern: gunmen would seize a family head or breadwinner and demand a ransom, typically between 1 million and tens of millions of CFA francs, before releasing the victim days or weeks later, according to the Institute for Security Studies. Since April, researchers say, more attacks have targeted women, and a growing share of abductors are abandoning ransom demands altogether, leaving families with no negotiation to pursue and no clear path to getting relatives back.
The security response has struggled to keep pace. Gendarmes broke up a kidnapping ring in Ngong in August and a Rapid Intervention Battalion freed eight hostages in Touboro earlier this year, but many families still avoid reporting abductions to authorities, fearing that police involvement will get a captive killed, or simply doubting security forces can act in time in remote border areas. Similar distrust of state protection has shaped other parts of Cameroon’s security landscape, echoing the debate over who should safeguard critical infrastructure raised in a separate dispute over pipeline surveillance contracts in Nigeria’s Niger Delta.
The kidnapping crisis is unfolding alongside a broader displacement emergency. More than 510,000 people were internally displaced in the Far North region as of March 2026, with roughly 14,400 new displacements recorded in January and February alone, according to ACAPS. Food insecurity in the region has reached crisis levels on the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification scale, with some households sliding into emergency conditions as repeated displacement and insecurity erode livelihoods across the region.
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Source: Africa Center for Strategic Studies, ACAPS, Institute for Security Studies
