At least 23 dead and more than 100 injured in suspected suicide bombings in Nigeria, police say

Maiduguri, Nigeria— At least 23 people were killed and more than 100 wounded in suspected suicide bomb attacks Monday night in the northeastern Nigerian city of Maiduguri, police said Tuesday. It was one of the deadliest attacks in the conflict-torn city’s recent history.

Residents and emergency services previously told The News that three explosions were reported at crowded places in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state, including a major market and the entrance to the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital.

“Unfortunately, a total of 23 people lost their lives, while another 108 suffered injuries of varying degrees,” Borno police spokesman Nahum Kenneth Daso said in a statement that attributed the attacks to suspected suicide bombers.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks, but suspicion quickly fell on the jihadist group Boko Haram, which launched an insurgency in northeastern Nigeria in 2009 to impose its radical interpretation of Sharia law.

Since then, Boko Haram has grown stronger, with thousands of fighters and different factions, including the allied ISIS faction in West Africa.

The city of Maiduguri had been at the center of deadly violence, but in recent years has experienced relative peace, even as the countryside is often plagued by extremists.

Residents recounted the chaos that followed the explosions.

“This attack was one of the deadliest in Maiduguri in years,” said Mohammed Hassan, a member of a group of volunteers helping security forces combat extremists. “We urgently need blood,” he said of the situation hours after the attack.

Extremists have intensified their attacks on Nigerian military bases, killing several high-ranking officers and soldiers and stripping the bases of their stockpiles of weapons and ammunition.