Multiple explosions rocked Maiduguri in Borno State early Friday, killing three suicide bombers, the emergency service and police said.
The blasts on Damboa Road in the restive city were triggered when one of the bombers detonated his explosives, Ibrahim Abdulkadir, of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), told AFP.
“Three suicide bombers came into the city through Damboa around 3:00 am (0200 GMT) and they were spotted by civilian (vigilantes),” he said.
“They quickly ran and hid under three petrol tankers, where one of them detonated his explosives, killing all of them.”
Two of the bombers were women and the third male.
The Borno State Police Command also confirmed the incident.
“We are lucky. Today could have been another sad day for us in Maiduguri,” police commissioner Damian Chukwu told reporters at the scene, where fire fighters were dousing several fires.
The blasts in Maiduguri are the latest blamed on suicide bombers, who continue to pose a threat to civilians despite military claims of success against Islamists.
The attack comes just days before the U.N. Security Council is expected in Maiduguri as part of a four-nation tour of countries in the Lake Chad Basin devastated by the seven-year Boko Haram uprising.
On February 17, as many as seven bombers, six of them women, tried to attack Maiduguri but were either shot by security personnel or detonated their explosives before reaching their targets.
There have been similar attacks against mosques and security checkpoints.
The Boko Haram insurgency has left at least 20,000 people dead since it began in 2009 and has displaced more than 2.6 million others.
