Multiple bomb attacks kill 16 in northeastern Nigeria

The Nigerian police say multiple bomb attacks have claimed the lives of at least 16 people and wounded more than a dozen others in the country’s troubled northeast.

Police said on Monday that seven bomb attacks were carried out by suspected members of the Boko Haram Takfiri terrorist group in the northeastern city of Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state.

The explosions occurred at the University of Maiduguri and in the Jere area of the city on Sunday evening and Monday morning.

Borno police sources noted that a male bomber killed a security guard after entering the university late on Sunday.

Around an hour later, four female bombers killed eight people on the outskirts of the city in Zannari community, in the Gwange district of Jere local government authority after detonating devices in residential buildings.

Two female bombers were the only people to die in two blasts at the university on Monday morning.

Damian Chukwu, Borno police commissioner, confirmed that at least 16 people had been killed in the latest wave of violence hitting the region.

"In all, 16 persons, including the bombers, died in the multiple explosions while 13 persons were injured,” he said.

No group has so far claimed responsibility for the latest attacks but they bear the hallmark of the Boko Haram Takfiri terrorist group, as it in the past employed radicalized females on multiple occasions to conduct bombing attacks against people or army troops.

In recent weeks, a number of bomb attacks by suspected members of the Boko Haram militant group have taken place in the capital of Borno state and its environs.

The attacks include blasts that killed 12 people on June 19 and a June 7 raid, which left 14 dead in the Jiddari Polo area of Maiduguri.  

Nigeria's state security agency said on Friday it had foiled plans to detonate explosives in four northern cities - Maiduguri, Kano, Sokoto and Kaduna - during celebrations of Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of the holy Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.

In December 2016, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, who came to power in 2015 with a pledge to eradicate Boko Haram, announced that the army had “crushed” the terror group a day earlier by retaking its last key bastion, deep inside the thick Sambisa Forest in Borno.

The group has, however, resorted to sporadic shooting and bombing attacks in the northeast of the African country, spreading panic among the local residents.

Boko Haram, whose name means “Western education is forbidden,” has claimed responsibility for a number of deadly terror attacks in Nigeria since the beginning of their militancy in 2009, which has so far claimed the lives of at least 20,000 people and made more than 2.7 million displaced.

The United Nations has warned that areas affected by Boko Haram face a humanitarian crisis.

Back in February 2016, four nations of the Lake Chad Basin - Chad, Cameroon, Niger and Nigeria -launched a campaign, together with a contingent from Benin, to confront the threat from Boko Haram in the region.

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