At least 26 people were killed today in three suicide attacks in the far north of Cameroon, a region often targeted by Nigeria's Boko Haram Islamist group, according to a police toll.

The attacks targeted the local market in Bodo, near the frontier with Nigeria in one of the deadliest incidents to hit the region.

"An initial toll shows 29 dead and around 30 injured," a police source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP, saying the toll included the three suicide bombers.

Since 2013, nearly 1,200 people have died in Boko Haram attacks in Cameroon's far north, according to a toll given this month by Communications Minister Issa Chiroma Bakary.

Up until then, when Cameroon bolstered its military presence along the border with Nigeria, Boko Haram fighters had slipped back and forth across the frontier, often using the remote north of Cameroon as a rear base and acquiring arms, vehicles and supplies there.

Cameroon since has ordered its army to go on the offensive, joining troops from Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Benin in a regional coalition against Boko Haram. The region was attacked just last week, when four worshippers were killed in a suicide bombing at a village mosque.

The Nigeria-based jihadists have killed at least 17,000 people and made more than 2.6 million others homeless since their six-year campaign began.