Seen from Pretoria, joint command not new bases will secure Lake Chad

In a piece published on 15 October 2026, Raoul Sumo Tayo, senior researcher at ISS Africa's Central Africa Observatory, examines the Lake Chad Rapid Intervention Battalion (BIR) that Cameroon stood up in September. The unit of roughly 1,000 troops is deploying alongside some 500 soldiers at Makary and Blangoua, while new bases at Bargaram and Hilé-Alifa opened in September. IOM data show that recent attacks at Darak, Bargaram and Hilé-Alifa displaced more than 11,300 people. The aim, the author writes, is to stop Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) from shifting its stronghold in north-eastern Nigeria into northern Cameroon, and to establish a permanent presence in areas where militants tax the local population.

Sumo Tayo's central warning is about fragmented command. Four separate units now fight Boko Haram in Cameroon: the 4th Joint Military Region, BIR Alpha Force, BIR Lake Chad and the Special Forces, alongside the first sector of the Multinational Joint Task Force, the gendarmerie, the police and the Directorate-General for External Research. The militants use reconnaissance and kamikaze drones, improvised explosives and papyrus rafts; in February, 4,223 people fled Bargaram and Darak in three days. The author calls for a clarified chain of command, coordination with the Israeli contractors who report directly to the president, joint work with Nigerian, Nigerien and Chadian forces, and more patrolling on the lake and its waterways.