Another Saturday in northern Nigeria.
At least five blasts have killed 50 people and injured 56 in the city of Maiduguri in north-eastern Nigeria, an official has told the BBC.
Two crowded markets and a busy bus station were targeted by suicide bombers, witnesses said.
Witnesses in one of the markets described gory scenes with men, women and children lying on the ground.
In pieces, no doubt.
Boko Haram hasn’t said anything yet, but no one will be surprised when they do. They were pushed out of Maiduguri last year, and since then they’ve been in a forest nearby, making life hell for everyone.
The attacks took place over about three hours – the first one targeting the city’s Baga fish market.
The explosion was caused by a suicide bomber in a rickshaw, eyewitnesses told the BBC.
It was not clear if the bomber was male or female.
Later Monday Market came under an attack. A trader there told the BBC that two other female bombers seemed to have exploded devices.
One had a bomb strapped to her body that detonated as she was being scanned at the gate leading into the market, he said.
Another woman exploded the bomb she was carrying in a bag a few feet away, he added.
There was another bomb at a bus station. Markets and bus stations – not where the rich and powerful hang out, not where soldiers hang out, but the easiest of easy pickings. A school in Peshawar, a girls’ school bus in Mingora, markets in Maiduguri.
Saad says
They’re buddies now.
Marcus Ranum says
Those bombs were set by someone, they didn’t just happen. Boko Haram killed 50 people. They used bombs to do it.
Ophelia Benson says
Well except that that wasn’t established when I wrote the post, as I said in the post. Obviously I think Boko Haram did it, but I don’t know they did, so I can’t very well say they did in the title. At any rate I didn’t want to, because it would be sloppy.