About 50 people were killed and over 100 wounded in attacks by Boko Haram in Borno and Adamawa states on Monday.
The blasts came a day after the army fought the Islamist group west of Maiduguri, capital of Borno State and birthplace of its campaign to create an Islamic state in the northeast of Africa’s most populous country.
Monday’s blast in Borno happened as residents gathered around a mosque in Buraburin, behind the Federal High Court after the army had exchanged fire on Sunday with suspected Boko Haram fighters who it said had tried to slip into Maiduguri to stage suicide bombings.
At least 20 people died from the blast.
A police officer told PREMIUM TIMES that the victims had gathered to investigate if a bomb was truly abandoned in the mosque.
“I have never seen such foolishness when people would go peeping into a mosque to find out if truly there was an explosive deposited in a place. But sadly, the bomb went off and over 20 persons were killed and many injured,” the police officer said.
Ibrahim Goni, a resident who said he had visited the blast scene said, “We all fled yesterday as our houses were on fire. This morning we came back, and while we were counting the people who had burned in the houses, another bomb exploded.”
Thirty people were feared killed when two female suicide bombers attacked a busy motor park in Madagali town of Adamawa State.
A witness, Danladi Buba, said the two female suicide bombers detonated bombs at a mini market near a motor park around 9am, killing many people.
“About 30 people were killed with 16 others injured,” Mr. Buba said.
When contacted, the Brigade Commander of 28 Task Force Brigade, Mubi, Victor Ezugwu, confirmed the incident, saying the casualty figure was yet to be established.
“Two female suicide bombers struck at a garage in Madagali and detonated their devices, and we lost some beloved country men,” Mr. Ezugwu, a brigadier-general, said.
He said the injured had been taken to hospital while the military had cordoned off the area.
The brigade commander said the situation had been brought under control.
The Adamawa State Emergency Management Agency later confirmed the death of 17 persons in Monday’s twin suicide bomb attacks in Madagali town.
The Executive Secretary of ADSEMA, Mallam Haruna Furo, confirmed the attacks.
Furo told the News Agency of Nigeria on Monday in Yola that 41 people sustained injuries.
He said the injured were taken to hospitals in Mubi and Yola.
An army counter-offensive earlier this year recaptured most of the territory Boko Haram had seized over the past few years. Boko Haram has since reverted to a strategy of hitting soft targets such as markets, bus stations and places of worship, as well as hit-and-run attacks on villages, mainly in Borno state.
President Muhammadu Buhari told the BBC on Thursday, December 24 that Nigeria has “technically” won the war against Boko Haram though suicide bombers remain a threat, as his self-imposed deadline to defeat the jihadist group expires on December 31.
