A grenade attack launched early Sunday morning at a displaced person’s camp in the Far North region of Cameroon killed 16 people and wounded seven, according to local officials.
“It’s obvious that Boko Haram is responsible,” Mahamat Chetima Abba, the mayor of Mayo-Moskota, where Nguetchewe camp is located, told French news agency AFP.
The town has an informal camp of about 800 people where many have fled the violence from Islamist group Boko Haram. Mayo-Moskota is near the Nigerian border.
Reports indicate that the attackers arrived with a woman, who was holding the grenade.
The Extreme North region had been calm for a few weeks, according to Abba, so the attack was a surprise, he said.
Boko Haram is a Nigerian separatist group that is trying to create their own Islamist caliphate in the country. Fighting does spill into countries bordering Nigeria, however, including Cameroon, Niger, and Chad.
#Bokoharam still kills innocent civilians in Northern #Cameroon and neighboring countries. The poorest and most vulnerable are targeted. Rich countries can catch terrorists hiding in caves in Afghanistan or Iraq and yet are unable to find some lunatic killers in African savannas. pic.twitter.com/aB10KfSbox- Célestin Monga (@CelestinMonga) August 3, 2020
Some 30,000 people have died, while millions have been displaced due to the violence.