Suicide bomber kills 3 in north Cameroon, 20 injured

Three civilians were killed and around 20 others wounded on Sunday in a suicide attack in northern Cameroon, officials and a vigilante group said. 

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a security official told AFP the attack took place in Mora, a town in Cameroon’s far north near the Nigerian border an area which has suffered repeatedly from attacks by Nigeria’s Boko Haram Islamists. 

“A man riding a motorbike blew himself up on a bridge near the market in Mora,” he said. 

He said the blast had killed three civilians and the bomber. 

An official from a local vigilante group confirmed a toll of “four dead and many wounded”, saying the attack took place at around 7:00am (0600 GMT). 

Midjiyawa Bakari, governor of the Far North region, confirmed a “provisional toll” of three civilians plus the suicide bomber. 

He identified the victims as a teacher, a high school student and a person from a neighbouring town, and said five of the wounded were in “serious condition”. He said a helicopter was on hand to take them to hospital in Maroua, the regional capital. 

Mora is home to the headquarters of a multi-national force fighting Boko Haram, which groups troops from Cameroon, Nigeria, Chad and Niger. 

There are currently more than 8,000 Cameroonian soldiers deployed in the far north to counter Boko Haram, and there is a large military base for the motorised infantry brigades in the Mora area. 

[vanguard]