Suspected Boko Haram insurgents have blown themselves up in a market in Cameroon, killing at least 25 people and injuring 62 others.
“There were in all three explosions. Two went off in the Bodo Market and a third exploded on a bridge near the military camp,” Albert Mekondane Obounou, a local administrative official, told CNN.
“The temporary count informs us that at least 25 people were killed in the bombings,” he said, suggesting that the death toll could rise.
The death toll does not include the bombers.
The Bodo Market is in the Logone and Chari Division of Cameroon’s Far North Region.
Town has been a target before
It is not the first time Bodo has come under attack from the terrorists.
At the end of December, local residents prevented two female suicide bombers from accessing the same market. The bombers blew themselves up anyway.
And on January 13, a suicide bomber killed 12 people and wounded at least one other in an attack on a mosque in Kouyape in northern Cameroon.
On Saturday, Cameroon’s defense forces killed 10 attackers in the town of Kerawa, on the Nigerian border. The forces ambushed the attackers, who were trying to enter Kerawa. Four assault rifles, munitions and explosives were confiscated.
Stealing cattle
Security forces say the insurgents wanted to steal cattle, apparently because they are running out of supplies.
The insurgents had already stolen more than 4,000 cattle in an overnight raid on January 14 in the towns of Fotokol, Hile Alifa and Makary.
Cameroon has become a major target for Boko Haram attacks. Communication Minister Issa Tchiroma Bakary said earlier this month that the insurgents have killed nearly 1,200 people since they began attacks in Cameroon in 2013.
Tchiroma has frequently said that “the days of Boko Haram were numbered.”
But the most recent attack suggests otherwise.
Cameroon is part of an 8,700-member Multinational Task Force to fight the terrorists, and the United States has contributed 300 troops as well as equipment to assist.
