Nigeria: Four killed in multiple suicide blasts

Maiduguri, May 4: At least four people were killed and nine others injured in multiple suicide attacks outside the northeast Nigerian city of Maiduguri, the emergency services and residents said on Friday.

The attacks happened just days after twin suicide blasts at a mosque and a market killed 86 people in neighbouring Adamawa state.

"We evacuated four dead bodies and nine injured persons to the hospital this morning," Bello Danbatta, chief security officer at the Borno State Emergency Management Agency, told AFP.

Four female suicide bombers struck at Mainari Shuwa and neighbouring Mainari Kanuri, some 15 kms north of the Borno state capital late on Thursday.

Danbatta said two of the bombers attacked Mainari Shuwa at about 11:00 pm. The first bomber stormed into a home and detonated her explosives, killing three people and injuring nine others.

The second set off her explosives near another home and killed a man sleeping in the open. The other two bombers blew themselves up in Mainari Kanuri moments later but there were no other casualties, said Danbatta.

Boko Haram has increasingly used suicide bombers to attack civilian and military targets during its nearly nine-year insurgency in northeast Nigeria. Most of the bombers have been women and young girls, who have been sent to target security checkpoints, schools, mosques, markets, bus stations and other crowded places.

On Tuesday, two suicide bombers, believed to be young boys, killed 86 people in attacks on a mosque and nearby market in the town of Mubi in Adamawa. The attack caused the biggest loss of life in the conflict in more than two years.

PTI