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Nigeria suicide blasts

Suspected Boko Haram jihadists killed at least 31 people in a twin suicide bomb attack on a town in northeast Nigeria, a local official and militia leader told AFP on Sunday.
Two blasts ripped through the town of Damboa in Borno state on Saturday evening targeting people returning from celebrating the Eid al-Fitr holiday, in an attack bearing all the hallmarks of Boko Haram.

Following the suicide bombings, the jihadists fired rocket-propelled grenades into the crowds that had gathered at the scene of the attacks, driving the number of casualties higher.

“There were two suicide attacks and rocket-propelled grenade explosions in Damboa last night which killed 31 people and left several others injured,” said militia leader Babakura Kolo.

Two suicide bombers detonated their explosives in Shuwari and nearby Abachari neighbourhoods in the town around 2145GMT, killing six residents, said Kolo, speaking from the state capital Maiduguri, which is 88km from the town.

“No one needs to be told this is the work of Boko Haram,” Kolo said.

A local government official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, confirmed the death toll.

“The latest death toll is now 31 but it may increase because many among the injured may not survive,” said the official.

“Most of the casualties were from the rocket projectiles fired from outside the town minutes after two suicide bomber attacked,” he said.

The jihadist group has deployed suicide bombers, many of them young girls, in mosques, markets and camps housing people displaced by the nine-year insurgency which has devastated Nigeria’s northeast.

On May 1 at least 86 people were killed in twin suicide blasts targeting a mosque and a nearby market in the town of Mubi in neighbouring Adamawa state.

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari came into power in 2015 vowing to stamp out Boko Haram but the jihadists continue to stage frequent attacks, targeting both civilians and security forces.

The militants stormed the Government Girls Technical College in Dapchi on February 19, seizing over 100 schoolgirls in a carbon copy of the abduction in Chibok in 2014 that caused global outrage.

Meanwhile, a shooting and fire in Nicaragua has left eight people dead and shattered a truce struck hours earlier between President Daniel Ortega and protesters after two months of political unrest that has caused at least 170 deaths.

Loud bursts of assault rifles were heard on Saturday morning, apparently emanating from makeshift roadblocks near a university campus, according to a Reuters news agency reporter in Managua, Nicaragua’s capital and the epicentre of protests since mid-April.

The violence flared hours after Ortega and civic leaders agreed on Friday to cease hostilities, remove roadblocks and allow for a foreign inquiry into the country’s bloodiest confrontations since a civil war ended in 1990.

Despite the breakout of violence, both sides resumed talks to address the Catholic Church’s proposal to anticipate general elections and implement political reforms.

Local media reported that police and pro-Ortega masked gunmen had fired at protesters guarding the roadblocks. The government did not reply to a request for comment on the reports. The national police in a statement attributed the gunfire to protesters, and said two men had died. —Al Jazeera.