Suicide bombers kill over 30 in Cameroon and Nigeria
A child and a middle-aged woman were deployed as suicide bombers in the Far North Region of Cameroon and in Yobe state in Nigeria over the weekend. The two attacks killed at least 34 people and wounded more than 100 others. No group has yet to take responsibility for the bombings, but the Islamic State’s West Africa province (ISWA), formerly known as Boko Haram, is widely suspected.
According to AFP, a 12-year-old girl detonated in a popular and crowded bar in Maroua, Cameroon, late Saturday night. The attack left 20 people dead and at least 79 people wounded. However, a local official told the Associated Press that aid workers are still counting bodies and numbers could rise. The attack in Maroua comes just three days after two other suicide bombers, two teenage girls, killed more than 20 in the Cameroonian city.
Yesterday’s attack is the fifth in three weeks in Cameroon involving female suicide bombers. On July 12, two women also detonated explosives in the town of Fotokol in the Far Northern Region, killing 13 people. The regional government banned women from wearing burkas, which ISWA often uses to mask its suicide bombers. The jihadist group has launched numerous military attacks in Cameroon’s Far Northern Region over the past several years.
In Nigeria, a woman said to be around 40 detonated herself in a crowded market in the town of Damaturu on Sunday morning. The blast killed 14 people and wounded 47 others, according to a local nurse. The woman had been described as “mentally unstable” by locals, the AFP reports.
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