International
Al Jazeera
Boko Haram struck the northeastern Nigerian city of Maiduguri for the first time in months Monday with rocket-propelled grenades and multiple suicide bombers, witnesses said. At least 50 people were killed, and the death toll could go higher.
A twin suicide bombing killed at least 30 people in Madagali, a town 95 miles southeast of Maiduguri, witnesses said. Danladi Buba said two women blew themselves up at a market near a busy bus station at about 9 a.m. Brig. Gen. Victor Ezugwu, the officer commanding in Adamawa state in the northeast, confirmed the attack but said the number of casualties has yet to be established.
In Maiduguri, the capital of neighboring Borno state, at least 30 were killed and more than 90 wounded in overnight blasts and shootouts, and an additional 20 died in a bombing outside a mosque at dawn Monday, said Muhammed Kanar, the area coordinator of the National Emergency Management Agency.
The military said there were multiple attacks at four southwestern entry points to the city.
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In another blast, two girls blew themselves up in the Buraburin neighborhood, killing several people, according to civil servant Yunusa Abdullahi. "We are under siege," he said. "We don't know how many of these bombs or these female suicide bombers were sneaked into Maiduguri last night." He said some residents found undetonated bombs.
The attack appears to be a challenge to Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari's declaration last week that Boko Haram has been "technically" defeated, capable of no more than suicide bombings on soft targets.
Acting on information provided by a captured insurgent, Nigerian troops "intercepted and destroyed" 13 suicide bombers and arrested one female suicide bomber in repelling the attackers, Maj. Gen. Lamidi Adeosun, the commander prosecuting Nigeria's war against Boko Haram, told reporters.
Maiduguri is the birthplace of Boko Haram, which emerged as a much more radical entity after Nigerian security forces launched an all-out assault on its compound in the city in 2009, killing 700 people.
Previously home to about 1 million people, the city now additionally hosts almost as many refugees, among 2.5 million people driven from their homes in the six-year-old Boko Haram uprising. About 20,000 people have been killed in Nigeria and hundreds others elsewhere as the insurgents have carried their conflict across its borders into Cameroon, Niger and Chad.
Boko Haram became internationally notorious after it kidnapped at least 200 female students in April of 2014 from a school in Chibok, a town in northeastern Nigeria. Most of the kidnapped students were never rescued, and Boko Haram has continued sporadic raids on the area since — including the torching of a village near Chibok this month.
The group has destroyed more than 1,000 schools in Nigeria this year, and violence related to the group has forced more than 1 million children from school.
On Monday, Boko Haram insurgents firing indiscriminately from the backs of three trucks attacked the village of Dawari. Soldiers engaged them, and as people fled, a woman ran into the area yelling, "Boko Haram, Boko Haram!" When people gathered, she detonated her explosives, according to village head Bulama Isa.
A rocket-propelled grenade then exploded, setting alight grass-thatched huts, and a second woman blew herself up, according to Isa. Among those killed were the village chief and 10 of his children, according to residents Ahmed Bala and Umar Ibrahim.
A soldier said the insurgents fired rocket-propelled grenades into four residential areas on the outskirts of the city. Soldiers fired back, and many civilians were caught in the crossfire, according to the soldier, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to journalists.
Three suicide bombers blew themselves up at a home near Bakassi Estate, killing 18 people Sunday evening, another soldier told The Associated Press.
A nurse at Maiduguri Specialist Hospital said dozens of critically wounded civilians, mainly children and women, may not survive. A doctor at the hospital later said four of the wounded died and the number of injured was about 100. Like the nurse, he spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to reporters.
The nurse said the hospital was so swamped with patients that some had to be cared for in the maternity ward. About 60 people had wounds from bullets and shrapnel from explosive devices, she said. Some of the wounded had to be sent to other hospitals in the city.
Al Jazeera and The Associated Press
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