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Trio of suicide bombers kill 20 at crowded market in Nigeria

February 17, 2018

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria — A trio of suicide bombers detonated at a crowded fish market in northern Nigeria, killing at least 20 people, police said on Saturday.

Borno state police spokesman Joseph Kwaji confirmed the Friday night attack. Hospital officials said two patients later died from their injuries.

The bombers, all believed to be female, left dozens wounded at the fish market in Konduga, just outside the state capital, Maiduguri. The city is the birthplace of the Boko Haram insurgency and has been a frequent target.

Musa Bulama, 32, said he was lucky to have survived the blasts.

“I came to the night market to buy fish for dinner when I heard a loud bang some meters (yards) behind me and I saw myself on the ground, and before I could pick up myself another one went off then, the third one again,” he recalled. “I couldn’t stand any longer and just laid down but everywhere was in total confusion.”

He added: “From the wailings, one can tell that there are many casualties.”

Friday’s deadly attacks came in the week that hundreds of Boko Haram suspects went on trial at civilian courts at a military base.

One fighter involved in the 2014 abduction of more than 200 schoolgirls from the Borno state town of Chibok was jailed for 15 years.

At least 20,000 people have been killed and more than 2.6 million others made homeless since 2009. Nigeria’s military and government maintains the group is a spent force.

But suicide attacks and raids persist, with civilians in hard-to-reach rural areas and outlying towns at risk.

On Jan. 31, two female suicide bombers blew themselves up at Mandarari village, near Konduga.

The blasts happened shortly after another bomber killed four and injured 44 at a displaced persons’ camp in Dalori, 22 kmaway on the same road to Maiduguri.

A fourth bomber also blew herself up outside the camp.

The Nigerian officer in charge of operations against Boko Haram, Major General Rogers Nicholas, on Wednesday said Daesh (the so-called IS) affiliate was “in disarray”.

Operations since the start of this year had flushed them out of their stronghold in the Sambisa Forest area of Borno state, which had previously been cleared in December 2016. — Agencies


February 17, 2018
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