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Twin bombing kills 19 in northern Cameroon

Friday, 19 February 2016 11:48 AM [ Last Update: Friday, 19 February 2016 11:47 AM ]

Cameroonian security forces transport remains of victims of a double blast in the northern city of Maroua on July 22, 2015. ©AFP

At least 19 people have lost their lives in twin bomb attacks targeting a local market in Cameroon’s volatile northern region, security officials say.

Military sources said two bombers on Friday detonated their explosives at the market in Meme, a department of Southwest Province, killing 19 people and injuring about 50 others.

No group or individual has so far claimed responsibility for the Friday attack, but the Nigeria-based Boko Haram terrorist group has carried out similar assaults in the northern parts of the country over the past months.

On February 10, two female bombers killed six civilians in a northern Cameroon region bordering militancy-wracked Nigeria.

The assaults hit the village of Nguetchewe, where people had joined the follow-up to a funeral ceremony

Cameroon has joined a regional military alliance alongside Niger, Chad and Nigeria in the battle against Boko Haram.

Cameroon has lost some 1,200 people to attacks by Boko Haram, which spread its campaign of terrorism to the country in 2013.

Over 100 people have reportedly been killed in the far northern region in about 20 bomb blasts blamed on the Daesh-affiliated Takfiri group since July 2015.

The Boko Haram militancy began in Nigeria in 2009, when the terrorist group started an armed rebellion against the government. At least 17,000 people have been killed and more than 2.5 million made homeless ever since.

The terrorists have pledged allegiance to the Takfiri Daesh terrorist group, which is primarily operating inside Syria and Iraq.

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