Suspected Boko Haram suicide bombers, including two working in tandem to attack a mosque, have killed at least 39 people in five strikes in the city where the Islamists started their violent insurgency.
The deadliest blast occurred after dusk on Thursday in Maiduguri, in Nigeria’s northeastern Borno state, when a man posing as a worshipper entered a mosque and detonated explosives strapped to his body.
His attack injured seven people but as relatives of the victims and members of an anti-Boko Haram militia rushed to the scene, a second bomber exploded in the crowd, according to Nigeria’s emergency management agency, killing at least 20 people.
Three women blew themselves up yesterday morning after being confronted by police near the scene of the mosque bombing. Officials put the death toll from the five blasts at 39, with at least 49 wounded.
Boko Haram, the group trying to carve out an Islamic state in northern Nigeria, is suspected of being responsible for the blasts.
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Since Muhammadu Buhari was elected president in March, Boko Haram has killed more than 1,000 people in five countries. Most of the attacks have been on civilian targets.
In Maiduguri, where Boko Haram was formed, suicide bombers have targeted members of government-backed civilian militias that were set up to counter the group’s rise.
Mr Buhari has vowed to destroy Boko Haram as an “organised fighting force” by the end of the year.
The group aligned itself this year with Islamic State and appealed to Somalia’s al-Shabaab Islamists in a video this week to do the same.