Female suicide bombers kill 5 in north Cameroon

Two female suspected Boko Haram militants detonated a pair of suicide bombs in a village in northern Cameroon on Saturday, killing at least five people, security sources and an official said. 

Col. Jacob Kodji said a teenager set off explosives in a local shop, killing two people, and the other attacker targeted a family.

The attacks occurred in the town of Dabanga near Cameroon's northern border with Nigeria. Kodji said the suicide bombers were Nigerians who came to Cameroon as refugees.

• Suspected Boko Haram attack thwarted in Cameroon
• Suspected Boko Haram fighters kill 23 in Cameroon
• Boko Haram kidnappings haunt Nigerian women

"The provisional toll is seven dead, including the two suicide bombers, as well as two soldiers injured," a senior government source told Reuters, requesting anonymity. 

Kodji said 12 others were injured and are receiving treatment at a military camp in Mora.

No group claimed responsibility for the attacks, but they are in line with others launched by Nigeria's Boko Haram extremists.

This year Boko Haram has expanded attacks into Cameroon, Chad and Niger — all countries contributing troops to a regional force intended to wipe out the extremists.

Centred in northeast Nigeria, Boko Haram is a radical Sunni Muslim group that wants to create an Islamic caliphate and impose its version of strict Sharia law and is hostile to those following the Shiite branch of the religion.

On Friday, a suspected Boko Haram suicide bomber detonated himself in the middle of a procession of hundreds of Shiite Muslims in Nigeria's second-largest city, killing 21 people and injuring dozens.