Four killed in twin suicide attack in North Cameroon

A pair of suicide bombers killed four people and left a trail of injury in north Cameroon on Thursday, the second such attacks this week in a region repeatedly targeted by Nigeria's deadly Boko Haram Islamists.

"There were new suicide attacks this morning in Kerawa," said a regional security source contacted by AFP. "Four civilians were killed. Many others were hurt."  A member of a local vigilante committee set up to ward off such attacks said the assailants were both women and confirmed that six people had died in all, including the bombers. The attacks took place next to a school sheltering people displaced from their homes by Boko Haram's six-year campaign of terror. The jihadists initially confined their war to Nigeria but last year saw a sharp increase in cross-border attacks in Niger, Chad and Cameroon. Kerawa was the scene of one such assault in September in which 20 people were killed. And on Monday, at least 37 people died in four suicide attacks at a market in Bodo, also in Cameroon's extreme north. Nearly 1,200 people have been killed since 2013 when Boko Haram began attacking Cameroon's Far North region bordering the Islamist group's stronghold in northeastern Nigeria, according to government spokesman, Communications Minister Issa Chiroma Bakary. "In total, 1,098 civilians, 67 of our soldiers and three police officials have been killed in these barbaric attacks by the Boko Haram terrorist group," he said earlier this month. In that time, officials say there have been more than 30 suicide attacks blamed on Boko Haram, which has pledged allegiance to the Islamic State (IS) group.