Cameroon: Suspected Boko Haram Suicide attack in Kolofata leaves one dead and many others injured

At least one person has been killed in Cameroon and many others injured following a suicide attack by Boko Haram on Saturday morning.

The attack took place in Kolofata, Cameroon’s far north region, close to the Nigerian border, said L’Oeil du Sahel newspaper. It was not clear whether the blast was carried out by a lone attacker or many.

“For now, one dead and many people injured,” L’Oeil du Sahel said.

Boko Haram has been wreaking havoc in Cameroon since 2014, killing about 2000 civilians and at least 150 soldiers and policemen and displacing hundreds of thousands of people in a war that does not seem to go away.

Presidents Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria and Paul Biya of Cameroon have vowed many times to crush the “godless, mindless” militants who pledged allegiance to the Islamic State in March 2015 and have since been modelling their barbarism after the Middle East killers, but those boasts have failed to bring peace and stability to the Lake Chad Basin.

Rather, the terrorists have been rising in strength and the Governor of Borno warned some weeks ago that help was needed now more than ever.

In a region where most people are stuck in squalor and hopelessness, the long term solutions are far away from being reached, especially because Mr. Biya for instance,  has not deemed it fit to visit his war zone, even though thousands of his countrymen have been massacred there in three years, and President Buhari is battling with his health since January 19 when he left Nigeria for a medical vacation in London, returning only 50 days after and declaring that he might go back for more tests.

Mr. Biya is abroad again and has been given seven days by some activists to return home or face the consequences.

He spends many months abroad every year, and his country’s Northeast and Northwest regions have been without Internet for months now as punishment for demanding justice and equality in a country where the President has been in power for 35 years, and has refused to learn English language to communicate effectively with those in those two regions.