Six people were killed on Friday when a
suicide bomber blew himself up at a mosque in Damboa, northeast Nigeria,
the army said, in the latest violence to hit the restive region.
Nigerian
Army spokesman Colonel Sani Usman said the attack happened at about
5:15 am (0415 GMT) in the town of Damboa, some 90 kilometres (56 miles)
southwest of the Borno state capital, Maiduguri. He blamed the attack on
“two Boko Haram terrorists”.
“The first suicide bomber
targeted Damboa Central Mosque but due to stringent security measures he
could not gain entry. Obviously frustrated, he exploded and died near
the central mosque,” he added.
“However, the second bomber
veered off and gained entry into another smaller mosque and detonated
the bomb, killing himself and six other worshippers and injuring one
other person. “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.
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 2.6 million 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 coordinator 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.
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