Seven civilians were killed in a village in the far north of Cameroon on Tuesday when a young suicide bomber detonated his bomb in an attack by jihadist fighters, the UN and a police officer said on Thursday (September 3rd).
Read also: Jihadists kill 14 people at the Nigeria / Cameroon border
"
When Boko Haram fighters attacked the village, people fled, but they were followed by a young boy who was carrying explosives which he set off in the crowd,
" the officer told AFP. the cover of anonymity.
Yaoundé speaks indiscriminately of Boko Haram and the Islamic State in West Africa (Iswap, resulting from a split of this Nigerian group to evoke the jihadist attacks. In a press release, the High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) "
strongly condemned this attack which killed seven civilians and injured 14 others in the village of Kouyapé
".
Boko Haram and Iswap have multiplied, in recent months, very deadly attacks targeting soldiers and civilians in the far north of Cameroon and in regions bordering Nigeria, Chad and Niger, on the rim of Lake Chad.
The "
suicide attack
" occurred on Tuesday, confirmed the UNHCR, "
near the border with Nigeria where nearly 18,000 internally displaced persons have arrived in search of safety over the past seven years
."
The attack comes a month after 18 civilians were killed and 15 others injured by jihadists during an attack on an IDP site in Nguétchéwé, also in the far north of Cameroon on August 2. “
We are horrified. by these senseless attacks against populations who have been torn from their villages, fleeing the violence of the armed gangs which are rife in the region, and are again struck in the heart, where they thought they had found refuge
”, deplores Olivier Guillaume Beer, UNHCR representative in Cameroon, in the press release.
"
These recent attacks illustrate a significant increase in the number of violent incidents in the far north of Cameroon, such as looting and kidnappings by Boko Haram and other armed groups operating in the region,
" said UNHCR.
Since January, 87 jihadist attacks have been recorded in this region.