No fewer than 25 people were killed on Monday after four suicide bombers invaded a market in the northern Cameroon.
The coordinated strikes occurred in Bodo village, near the border with Nigeria, a source in Cameroon’s military told Al Jazeera.
It was learnt that the first suicide bomber detonated the explosion on the road leading to the market while the second and third detonated theirs at the entrance and interior of the marketplace.
According to Reuters, two bombers struck the Bodo central market while others hit the town’s main entrance and exit points.
“There was a quadruple suicide bombing in the village of Bodo this morning (Monday morning). There are around 25 deaths and several wounded persons,” an official told Reuters.
No one has claimed responsibility for the latest attacks, but Cameroon and neighbouring countries have been carrying out offensives against the Boko Haram group, which declared allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria in 2015.
The sect had launched attacks in Nigeria and neighbouring countries, including Niger, over the past few months.
Two female suicide bombers had in December blew themselves up in Bodo. On January 13, a suicide bomber killed 12 people and wounded one other in an attack on a mosque in northern Cameroon.
The Monday attacks occurred about 27 kilometres from the town of Fotokol, near the Nigerian border, which had been the subject of previous attacks last year.
Boko Haram’s grip on the region has suffered as a result of assaults launched by local armies and a multinational force.
Last December, Cameroon reported killing at least 100 Boko Haram fighters and freeing 900 hostages.
The group was using Cameroon’s impoverished far north to stockpile supplies and recruits until the government crackdown last year.
On Monday, the United Nations and partners appealed for more than $820m to help refugees and others affected by violence in Cameroon, Nigeria and Central African Republic. Agency reports
