30 killed in Boko Haram attacks on Maiduguri
(Nigeria) Boko Haram Islamic extremists struck in Maiduguri,
Borno State for the first time in months Monday with rocket-propelled grenades
and multiple suicide bombers, witnesses said. At least 30 people were killed
and the death toll could go higher.
The military said there were multiple attacks at four
southwestern entry points to the city, including a woman suicide bomber who
killed one other person and injured 13 gathered outside a mosque after dawn
prayers Monday, reports AP.
The attack appears to be a challenge to President Muhammadu
Buhari's declaration last week that Boko Haram has been "technically"
defeated, capable of no more than suicide bombings on soft targets.
Nigerian troops "intercepted and destroyed" 10
suicide bombers and repelled the attackers, according to PR Nigeria, an agency
that disseminates government news.
Maiduguri, the city under attack, is the birthplace of Boko
Haram, which emerged as a much more radical entity after Nigerian security
forces launched an all-out assault on their compound in the city, killing 700
people in 2009.
Militants firing indiscriminately from the back of three
trucks attacked the outlying village of Dawari, soldiers engaged them, and as
people were fleeing, a woman ran into the area yelling "Boko Haram, Boko
Haram."
When people gathered, she detonated herself, according to village head
Bulama Isa.
A rocket-propelled grenade exploded, setting alight
grass-thatched huts, and a second woman blew herself up, according to Isa.
Meanwhile, in Duwari, an outlying suburb of Maiduguri, the village chief, 10 of
his children and others were killed, according to residents Ahmed Bala and Umar
Ibrahim.
A soldier said the insurgents fired rocket-propelled
grenades into four residential areas on the outskirts of the city. Soldiers
fired back, and many civilians were caught in the crossfire, according to the
soldier, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to
speak to journalists.
A nurse and a guard at Maiduguri Specialist Hospital said at
least 20 other bodies arrived overnight and dozens of critically wounded,
mainly children and women, may not survive.
Maj. Gen. Lamidi Adeosun, the commander prosecuting
Nigeria's war against Boko Haram, told reporters 29 people have been killed and
88 injured in attacks that began Sunday night.
The nurse, who spoke on condition of anonymity because she
is not authorized to speak to reporters, said the hospital was so overflowing
with patients that some had to be cared for in the maternity ward. About 60
people had wounds from bullets and shrapnel from explosive devices, she said.
Other wounded people had to be sent to other hospitals in the city.
Among those at Specialist Hospital was a baby found dead,
still tied to the back of her mother, after being hit by shrapnel, the nurse
said.
It was hard to do a body count because so many had been
blown into pieces, she said, describing torsos and dismembered arms and legs.
The guard said he counted about 70 people who arrived
overnight, most of them lifeless.
"The troops laid ambush on the terrorists' suspected
routes ... The suicide bombers were intercepted in three different locations
approaching the city," PR Nigeria said, quoting the military.
Some slipped through. Three suicide bombers blew themselves
up at a home near Bakassi Estate, killing 18 people Sunday evening, a soldier
told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he is not supposed
to speak to reporters.
Maiduguri, a city of about 1 million people, now hosts
almost as many refugees, among 2.5 million people driven from their homes in
the 6-year-old uprising. About 20,000 people have been killed in Nigeria and
hundreds others elsewhere as the insurgents have carried their conflict across
its borders into Cameroon, Niger and Chad.
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