Dozens dead in Nigeria suicide attacks

Twin suicide bombing at a mosque on the outskirts of the capital Maiduguri killed around 29 people late on Thursday

MAIDUGURI: At least 42 people have been killed in multiple suicide attacks in northeastern Nigeria’s Borno state at a mosque and a residential building, police and medical sources said on Friday.

Borno state is the birthplace of the Boko Haram insurgency and has been the focus of attacks by suspected members of the militant group that have killed around 1,000 people since President Muhammadu Buhari took office in May.

A twin suicide bombing at a mosque on the outskirts of the state capital Maiduguri killed around 29 people late on Thursday, a medical source said. A police spokesman put the toll at 14.

Around six people were killed by another suicide attack on Friday morning near the earlier bombings, but not at a mosque, a spokesman for the National Emergency Management Agency said. The bomber was also killed, while 17 people were wounded.

No one has claimed responsibility for the attacks but they bore the hallmarks of Boko Haram, which has been trying to carve out a state in the northeast of Africa’s most populous country since 2009.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 17^th, 2015.