Nine killed, 26 injured in explosion on Cameroon-Nigeria border
Tuesday January 07 2020
At least nine people were killed and 26 were wounded when a grenade exploded in a market in the Lake Chad area, at the border of Cameroon and Nigeria. PHOTO | FILE | NATION MEDIA GROUP
At least nine people were killed and 26 were wounded when a grenade exploded in a market in the Lake Chad area, at the border of Cameroon and Nigeria, authorities confirmed.
Mr Midjiyawa Bakary, Cameroon’s Far North regional governor, dismissed reports that it was a suicide attack.
He said some children playing on the Nigerian side of the El Beid bridge found the grenade and as they were talking about what to do with it, it exploded.
“There is a local market there and many people were crossing the bridge at the time of the blast…The nine people who died are all Nigerians while five of the 26 injured are Cameroonians,” Mr Bakary told The East African on the phone.
The Lake Chad area is prone to insecurity linked to insurgency by the Boko Haram militant group.
Late last month, suspected Boko Haram militants killed at least 50 people in the area—some of whom had been fishing on the lake, according to media reports.
Boko Haram began its bloody insurgency in northeastern Nigeria in 2009, but it has since spread into neighbouring Cameroon, Chad and Niger.