AFRICA/CAMEROON - More than 30 dead in two attacks in northern Cameroon

Yaounde (Agenzia Fides) - At least 30 people died in a double bomb attack yesterday, September 3, in Kerawa, a town in the far north of Cameroon on the border with Nigeria.
According to testimonies, a first explosion, attributed to a suicide bomber, occurred at 9:30 in the morning in the crowded local market, causing ten deaths.
A few minutes later, a female suicide bomber, who passed herself off as a person who was injured in the attack, blew herself up in the infirmary of the Rapid Intervention Battalion, an elite unit of the Cameroonian army deployed in the area to fight the Nigerian extremists of Boko Haram. The military infirmary is the only medical existing facility in the area.
The toll of the two attacks is about thirty dead and more than a hundred injured.
Kerawa is located next to the border with Nigeria and is exposed to the attacks of Boko Haram, which has now been renamed Group of the Islamic State in West Africa. The hill overlooking the town is situated in the territory of Nigeria and behind it there are several bases of the jihadists.
The military in Nigeria, Cameroon and Chad have sent troops to the area as part of the multinational mixed Force in charge of combating Boko Haram.
In the hours after the attack dozens of suspected militant jihadists were arrested in a joint operation of the Cameroonian and Nigerian military in Fotokol, also in the north-east of Cameroon. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides 04/09/2015)