At least 18 dead and dozens injured in suicide attacks in Nigeria | News

Suspected female suicide bombers have targeted a wedding, a funeral and a hospital in the restive Borno region.

At least 18 people died and dozens were injured after a series of explosions by suspected female suicide bombers targeted a wedding, a hospital and a funeral in Borno state in northeastern Nigeria.

Three explosions occurred on Saturday in the town of Gwoza, which lies across the border with Cameroon, Borno state police spokesman Nahum Kenneth Daso said on Sunday.

In one of the attacks, which occurred at around 3:45 pm (14:45 GMT), a woman carrying a baby on her back “detonated an improvised explosive device (IED) that she had with her in a crowded car park,” Daso said.

The suicide bombers also reportedly targeted a hospital in the same city. Another attack was later carried out at the funeral of the victims of the wedding blast, authorities said.

“So far, 18 deaths have been reported among children, men, women and pregnant women,” agency head Barkindo Saidu said in a report.

Nineteen “severely injured” people were taken to the regional capital, Maiduguri, while another 23 awaited evacuation.

A member of a militia helping the military in Gwoza said two of his colleagues and a soldier were also killed in a separate attack on a security post. However, authorities did not immediately confirm the deaths.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks yet.

Borno, a large swath of rural countryside the size of Ireland, has been scarred by 15-year violence that has killed thousands of people and displaced millions of others.

Although the Nigerian military has degraded the capabilities of armed groups, it still carries out deadly attacks on civilians and security targets.

In 2019, 30 people lost their lives in a triple suicide attack in the region, marking the deadliest mass murder committed by suicide bombers in the region that year.

Boko Haram and its splinter group, the Islamic State of West Africa Province (ISWAP), are the most active armed groups in Borno.

Throughout the armed rebellion, Boko Haram has repeatedly sent women and girls to carry out suicide attacks. It took Gwoza in 2014, when its fighters seized swathes of territory in northern Borno.

The city was retaken by the Nigerian military with the help of Chadian forces in 2015, but the group continued to launch attacks from the mountains near the city.

The violence has killed more than 40,000 people and displaced around two million in northeastern Nigeria.

The conflict spread to neighboring Niger, Cameroon and Chad, leading to the formation of a regional military coalition to combat armed groups.