Skip to main content

Suicide bombers kill 28, wound 82 in Borno



An injured victim of a female suicide bomber arrives in an ambulance for medical attention at a Maiduguri hospital in northeast Nigeria on August 15, 2017.  AFP PHOTO / STRINGER
Three women suicide bombers blew themselves up at the entrance to a camp for displaced people in northeast Nigeria on Tuesday, killing 28 people and wounding 82, local sources said.
The attack — the latest in a string of assaults in the troubled region — took place in the town of Mandarari, 25 kilometres (15 miles) from Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state, said Baba Kura, a member of a vigilante force set up to fight jihadists.
“Three female bombers triggered their explosive outside of the IDP (internally displaced persons) camp… killing 28 people and wounding 82 others,” Kura said.
The first assailant blew herself up, triggering panic, Kura said.
“People were trying to close their shops when two other female bombers triggered their explosives, causing most of the casualties,” he said.
Ibrahim Liman, the head of a local anti-jihadist militia force, confirmed the details of the attack, and said that more than 80 injured had been taken to Maiduguri hospital.
A source at the hospital said a “huge number” of patients had arrived.
Northeast Nigeria is a hotbed of activity by the Boko Haram jihadist group, involving shootings, bombings and kidnappings.
It launched an insurgency in 2009 that has killed about 20,000 people and displaced around 2.6 million others, creating one of the world’s biggest humanitarian crises.
Nearly two million are suffering from acute malnutrition, according to UN figures.
After being elected to power in 2015, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari made tackling the insurgency a priority, winning back swathes of territory and declaring that Boko Haram is “technically defeated”.
But this year has seen a surge in attacks, including an audacious assault on an oil exploration team that killed 69 people in Borno in July, raising fears that Boko Haram is regaining strength.
That attack prompted Vice President Yemi Osinbajo — standing in for President Muhammadu Buhari who is on indefinite sick leave — to tell the millitary to step up its response.
Osinbajo issued “fresh directives… to immediately scale-up their efforts and activities in Borno state… to maintain a strong, effective control of the situation”, his spokesman Laolu Akandehe said.
In August, however, 72 people have been killed in northeastern Nigeria, including 31 fishermen on islands in Lake Chad, according to an unofficial toll compiled from news reports.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

16-year-old pupil impregnated by vice principal gives birth

A 16-year-old pupil of the Government Secondary School, Tunga, Niger State, Faith Galadima, who was impregnated by the school’s vice principal, Mohammed Mohammed, has given birth to a baby boy. The teenager was delivered of the baby at Injita village, Munya Local Government Area of Niger State. The VP had allegedly slept with the pupil sometime in March this year, putting her in the family way. Mohammed was arraigned in court on April 4, 2017 and is standing trial on two counts of unlawful sexual intercourse with a child, and impregnating a female pupil. The accused was remanded in the prison custody for three months after he pleaded not guilty to the charges. The presiding magistrate, Fatima Auna, had granted the VP bail in the sum of N1m, which she said was in line with sections 35 and 36 of the 1999 constitution, and sections 341 and 342 of the Criminal Procedure Code. The victim, who narrated her ordeal to journalists on Tuesday, said that she gave birth to the bab...

2018: Buhari bans recruitment by MDAs, presents N8.612tn budget

President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday banned fresh recruitment by all Federal Government Ministries, Departments and Agencies, except by presidential approval. He said this was to manage a rising personnel expenditure that was expected to increase to 12 per cent in 2018. He disclosed that overhead cost would also rise by N26bn in 2018 or 12 per cent increase. Buhari spoke when he presented the estimates of the 2018 budget to a joint session of the Senate and the House of Representatives in Abuja. The President laid a budget size of N8.612tn before the legislature for 2018, an increase of N1.7tn from the N7.44tn appropriated in 2017. Buhari, who wore sky-blue Hausa native attire and a matching cap, addressed lawmakers for 1hour and13minutes amid applause and intermittent murmurs by senators and members of the House. The President said he had released up to N450bn out of the N2.2tn budgeted for 2017 capital projects as of the end of October. He promised to raise the im...

Herdsmen demand head, body parts of slain colleague

Fulani herdsmen under the aegis of Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria on Tuesday demanded the head and other body parts of one of their colleagues who was killed during a clash with farmers in Ugala, Yala Local Government Area of Cross River State. The slain herdsman, identified simply as Buba, was said to have been beheaded, during a fight between Fulani herdsmen and farmers in the community on Sunday. Several other persons sustained injuries in the fracas. The Vice Chairman of the MACBAN, Alhaji Abdurrahman Abdul, who led a delegation of herdsmen on a visit to the Assistant Inspector-General of Police in charge of Zone Six, Calabar, Mr. Abubakar Marafa, said three other members of the association had been declared missing since the incident happened. He told Southern City News that Buba was on his way to rescue one of his shepherds who was allegedly attacked by farmers when the  incident occurred, adding that the Cross River State Governor, Prof. Ben ...