YAOUNDE, CAMEROON - A military official said Saturday that two female suicide bombers had staged attacks in north Cameroon, killing at least five people.
Colonel Jacob Kodji said that a teenager set off explosives in a local shop, killing two people, and that the other attacker targeted a family in the town of Dabanga near Cameroon's northern border with Nigeria. He said the suicide bombers were Nigerians who had come to Cameroon as refugees.
Kodji said 12 other people were injured and were receiving treatment at a military camp in Mora.
This was the first time suicide bombers had attacked Dabanga, a village on the road to the Kousseri border post.
No group claimed responsibility for the attacks, which were in line with others launched by Boko Haram extremists, who want to create a hard-line Islamic state in northeast Nigeria.
This year, Boko Haram expanded attacks into Cameroon, Chad and Niger — all countries contributing troops to a regional force intended to wipe out the extremists.
Boko Haram's six-year insurgency has left at least 17,000 people dead and more than 2.6 million homeless.