More than 50 persons were killed and several seriously wounded when suspected Boko Haram Islamist militants attacked Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, on Saturday.
This is the worst attack on the city since the sect tried to seize the city in two major assaults earlier this year.
About 12 noon, the driver of a motorised tricycle detonated a bomb when the vehicle was prevented from entering a fish market on the Baga road in the west of Maiduguri, market trader Mohammad Ajia said after fleeing the scene.
Another blast hit the busy Monday market shortly afterwards. A car bomb exploded later by a bus station near a Department of State Security (DSS) office, according to a civilian member of a joint task force.
Clement Adoda, Borno State police commissioner, told journalists on phone, “We had multiple blasts today in Maiduguri and sadly about 54 persons were killed and many were injured.”
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“We’ve received 50 dead bodies from the blast scenes and 36 injured people,” Salisu Kwaya Bura, chief medical officer of Borno Specialists Hospital, told reporters.
“Men from the anti-bomb squad came a few minutes after the blast to comb the scene … I saw five mangled bodies being put in vehicles,” Aliyu Musa, a resident near the DSS office, said.
On Saturday, the army said it had retaken two more towns in Borno.
