Suicide bombers killed at least nine people and injured around 12 others yesterday in attacks in Damboa, northeastern Nigeria, both of them at mosques during early morning prayers, a military source said.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks in the town of Damboa, which is in Borno state, but they bore the hallmarks of Islamist militant group Boko Haram.
A member of a grassroots civilian joint task force set up to defend local people against Boko Haram also confirmed yesterday’s attacks on the mosques.
The first attacker targeted the Damboa Central Mosque early yesterday morning, but could not gain entry to the building, the officials said.
He was “obviously frustrated” and proceeded to detonate the bomb.
He died without injuring any others.
The second attacker detonated a bomb at a smaller mosque, killing six worshippers and himself in the attack.
Nigerian army spokesman Colonel Sani Usman said: “The wounded have been evacuated to a hospital while efforts are on to clear the rubble. Troops and other security agencies have been mobilised to the area.”
The attack is the latest against a mosque in northeast Nigeria and the wider Lake Chad region, as part of a campaign of violence by the Islamist group against civilian “soft” targets.
The Nigerian military suspects that Boko Haram is also responsible for an attack on the village Gaskeri on Thursday night that left three people dead.
Boko Haram is an extremist Sunni organisation that launches regular offensives in Nigeria, Chad, Niger and Cameroon with the ultimate goal of setting up a fundamentalist theocracy under a strict interpretation of Islamic law.
On June 27, two would-be suicide bombers were killed in Maiduguri, as they tried to target an overnight Ramadan vigil at a mosque on the Damboa Road.
Three days later, at least 10 people were killed in the town of Djakana, in northern Cameroon near the Nigerian border, when a suicide bomber blew himself up.
On July 4, the Nigerian army said it thwarted an attempted suicide bombing by three women against people displaced by Boko Haram in Monguno, northeast of Maiduguri.
There has been a relative lull in attacks, as troops regain control of territory once held by Boko Haram, whose fighters have been pushed into remote rural areas towards Lake Chad.
Usman said suspected Boko Haram fighters also attacked the village of Gaskeri, near the sprawling internally displaced people’s camp at Dalori, outside Maiduguri, on Thursday night.
“They killed three civilian vigilantes and looted foodstuffs. Troops have been mobilised and they are on the suspected terrorists’ trail,” he added.
The seven-year insurgency has left at least 20,000 people dead in Nigeria and displaced more than 2.6mn people, heaping pressure on local authorities in Nigeria, Niger, Cameroon and Chad.
Aid agencies have warned that some 50,000 children under five are facing severe acute malnutrition in Borno alone this year because of food shortages caused by the conflict.
UN assistant secretary general and regional humanitarian co-ordinator Toby Lanzer said in a statement that “time is running out for the poorest and most rural of people” in the northeast.
“A failure to act now will result in deeper and broader suffering, unlike anything seen to date in Nigeria’s northeast and a steeper bill for all concerned to alleviate suffering and stabilise the situation,” he added.