Boko Haram, the terrorist group on the rampage in Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad and Niger, has devised new ways of bombing innocent people.
According to Cameroonian officials, the two female suicide bombers that struck Friday in a market in Meme, Mora district, north of the country, posed as food vendors and kept their lethal weapons inside the cooking pots.
In a revised update on casualty toll, 24 people were killed and 112 injured. The death toll is expected to go up.
It was the first time Boko Haram, now described by the US as the most lethal violent terrorist group in the world, attacked the town of Meme. But there have been previous assaults near the town of Mora, which lies near the border of northeastern Nigeria.
Last week Cameroon’s military killed 162 Boko Haram militants and arrested about 100 others in an assault, according to government spokesman Issa Tchiroma.
A Cameroonian military source said two girls carried out the attack. Girls and young women have carried out a spate of suicide bombings in the region.
“These two girls took advantage of the fact that it was the woman’s market,” said another military source.
“They came like vendors, except they had explosives in their cooking pots.” The death toll may still rise.
Boko Haram violence in Cameroon has caused about 1,000 deaths, according to the government and military sources.
Boko Haram militants have killed about 15,000 people and driven more than 2 million from their homes during its six-year insurgency in one of the world’s poorest regions.
In a reaction to the attack in Meme, Cameroon troops killed a dozen members of Boko Haramin the locality of Djibrilli during a fight.