Boko Haram Attacks Northeast Nigerian City, Many Killed

A local resident Sheshu Mala said that during the attack, “all the residents in the area fled their homes to other parts of the city”.

Spokesman of the Vigilante Group of Nigeria, Abbas Gava, confirmed that the Boko Haram gunmen were making attempt to invade Maiduguri but were intercepted at Aladuwari village, where they exchanged gunfire with soldiers. When people gathered, she detonated herself, according to village head Bulama Isa.

Maiduguri, the Borno state capital has in the last 24 hours turned into a theatre of war and destruction.

Premium Times reports that a police officer said the victims of the bomb explosion had converged at the mosque on Monday morning, to ascertain if truly, a bomb was left behind. “We don’t know how many of these bombs or these female suicide bombers were sneaked into Maiduguri last night”.

The recent attacks come days before Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari’s self-imposed deadline to uproot the militants expires on December 31.

A nurse and a guard at Maiduguri Specialist Hospital said at least 20 bodies arrived overnight and dozens of critically wounded, mainly children and women, were also brought in.

Consequently, the troops laid ambush on the terrorists suspected routesalong Damboa Road and eliminated them.Anka said the suicide bombers were intercepted in three differentlocations approaching the city.

It had been reduced to fighting with improvised explosives devices (IED), he said.

Among them was a baby found dead, still tied to the back of her mother, who survived after being hit by shrapnel, the nurse said.

The attack comes as Nigeria’s government says it has contained the Islamic uprising that has killed 20,000 people in six years and driven 2.3 million people from their homes.

On Sunday, the sect was reported to have been involved in a gun duel with the Nigerian military, which led to arrest of the insurgents.

The Boko Haram insurgency has continued to step up its campaign of indiscriminate killings and suicide bombing using girls, often veiled to blow up targets in Nigeria’s northeast, northern Cameroon, Chad and Niger.