Twin suicide blasts claim 11 lives in Cameroon

Yaounde

At least 11 people were killed when two female suicide bombers blew themselves up near an army camp in troubled northern Cameroon in an attack blamed on Boko Haram Islamists.

President Paul Biya condemned the "cowardly and odious" attack, which took place on Sunday, and said he had given "strict instructions to the defence and security forces to secure our country."

Northern Cameroon, like Nigeria, Chad and Niger, has been hit in bloody attacks by Boko Haram, whose insurgency has now expanded across the region from the militants' homeland Nigeria.

Sunday's explosions occurred 50 metres (yards) apart within a few seconds of each other, near a camp of Cameroon's Rapid Intervention Battalion in the border town of Fotokol which faces the Nigerian outpost of Gamboru.

A government statement said the victims included 10 civilians and a Chadian soldier. Seven others were injured -- four Chadian and three Cameroonian soldiers.

Cameroonian and Chadian troops are deployed in Fotokol under a joint offensive to fight Boko Haram.

"We heard a loud explosion. Initially we thought it was a shell fired from Nigeria by Boko Haram but it was a woman who blew herself up," the source said.

"Seconds later there was another similar blast at a spot about 50 metres away. I counted 12 bodies," the source said.