Two dead in suicide attack in northern Cameroon

Yaound - A suicide attack at a market on Monday killed at least two civilians and wounded around 20 others in a northern region of Cameroon plagued by Boko Haram attacks, sources said.

The attacker concealed the bomb inside a bag of beans and exploded in the middle of a crowd in Kolofata, according to a source close to the security services.

A police source in the region confirmed the attack to AFP.

Boko Haram, a militant Islamist group, has been blamed for repeated assaults on Kolofata, including one particularly brazen operation in July 2014 that involved kidnapping the wife of the country's deputy prime minister, Amadou Ali.

Since 2014, when Cameroon went to war against Boko Haram, the group has killed 2 000 civilians and soldiers and abducted some 1 000 people in the far north of the country, according to the International Crisis Group (ICG).

Since its emergence eight years ago, Boko Haram, active in countries bordering Lake Chad (Nigeria, Cameroon, Niger and Chad), has killed at least 20 000 people.