Boko Haram: Four female suicide bombers kill 5 members of same family in northern Cameroon

Four female suicide bombers have attacked killed a village near the Cameroon-Nigeria border, killing at least five civilians on Saturday 21 November, according to Reuters. Dozens of people were also injured in the explosion that occurred in the north-eastern village of Nigue, a suburb of Fotokol town. Nigerian Islamist militant group Boko Haram is suspected of being behind the deadly attack.

One of the suicide bombers detonated her explosives, killing five members of the same family, including a traditional chief, according the local news website L'Oeil du Sahel. The other women also detonated their explosives but did not kill anyone else.

"The initial figures speak of 10 dead including the suicide bombers and around a dozen wounded," a senior Cameroonian army commander said.

Boko Haram has been engaged in a violent six-year campaign to establish an Islamist state in northeastern Nigeria. The terrorist group has killed over 6,600 people just in 2014, which is 600 people more than Islamic State (Isis) managed over the same period, according to the Institute for Economic and Peace (IEP). The Nigerian jihadists pledged allegiance to IS in March 2015.

Boko Haram's campaign has brought neighbouring countries, including Cameroon, Chad and Niger, together to fight an offensive against the group this year as the conflict has spilled across their borders, displacing tens of thousands of people. The terror group was using the impoverished Far North of Cameroon to stash fighters and weaponry until a government crackdown forced the militants out of the area.

Cameroon is part of an 8,700-strong regional force tasked with degrading and destroying the Boko Haram group. The US has sent military equipment and non-combat troops to the region to assist with the fight.

The suicide attack in Cameroon comes a day after Islamists in Mali attacked a hotel frequented by foreigners in the capital Bamako. In that attack, Al-Qaeda-linked gunman killed at least 27 people dead at the Radisson Blu hotel.