Two bombs blamed on the Islamic extremist group Boko Haram exploded at a crowded mosque and an elite Muslim restaurant in Jos on Sunday, killing 44 people.
Sixty-seven other people were wounded in the night attacks and were being treated at hospitals, said National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) coordinator Abdussalam Mohammed.
The explosion at the Yantaya Mosque came as leading cleric Sani Yahaya of the Jama’atu Izalatul Bidia organisation, which preaches peaceful co-existence of all religions, was addressing a crowd during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, according to survivors who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.
Another bomb exploded at Shagalinku, a restaurant patronised by state governors and other elite politicians.
Jos has been targeted in the past by bomb blasts claimed by Boko Haram extremists that have killed hundreds of people.
Sunday’s attacks are the latest in a string blamed on Boko Haram that has killed more than 200 people over the past week in northeast Nigeria.
The extremists returned Sunday to north-eastern villages attacked three days earlier, killing nine villagers and burning down 32 churches and about 300 homes, said Stephen Apagu, chairman of a vigilante self-defence group in Borno state’s Askira-Uba local government area.
He said the vigilantes killed three militants.
Boko Haram took over a large swath of north-eastern Nigeria last year and stepped up cross-border raids. A multinational army from Nigeria and its neighbours forced the militants out of towns, but bombings and village attacks increased in recent weeks, apparently in response to an Islamic State group order for more mayhem during Ramadan.
Boko Haram became the Islamic State group’s West Africa franchise earlier this year.
