Bombings foiled in north Cameroon, prey to Boko Haram

Two women suicide bombers who were foiled in a bid to attack a village market in northern Cameroon blew themselves up on Tuesday, wounding two farm workers, security sources said.

The women took their own lives at around 6:20 am (0520 GMT) in the village of Gouzoudou in Kolofata district, which has seen three such explosions by Islamists of Boko Haram so far this month.

A source in the security forces, asking not to be named, told AFP that the two women detonated their bombs at the entrance to the village.

“The two suicide bombers clearly planned to blow themselves up on Monday, which is market day in the village, but it had been secured by security forces,” a source close to local authorities said.

Unable to target a crowded market, the pair chose instead to “hide out” before setting off their bombs at dawn, the source added. “Two people on their way to the fields were wounded.”

The blasts came two days after a young girl and boy killed three people in the town of Mora in the same part of far northern Cameroon, near the Nigerian border, according to security sources.

One of those killed was a Cameroonian police officer who had just come off duty and challenged five suspects as he headed to the market to buy food, one source said.

A first bomber blew himself up with the policeman, while another detonated his device a few hundred metres (yards) away and the other suspects fled the scene.

Cameroonian troops have joined a five-nation regional military force taking the offensive to the Nigerian armed extremists, whose insurgency since 2009 has killed at least 15,000 people and left more than two million homeless.

Since July, the Islamist movement has killed about 100 people in the far north of Cameroon.

Police have stepped up their presence at markets in the region ahead of the Feast of Sacrifice, a key Muslim holiday.

If Sunday’s bombers in Mora “had succeeded in their plan, the toll would have been terrible,” a security source said.