Blasts Kill at Least 24 in Nigeria

At least 24 people have been killed in a double suicide attack on a mosque and a market in northeast Nigeria, police said.

More than a dozen were hurt in the explosions in the town of Mubi on Tuesday, Aljazeera reported.

Abdullahi Yerima, police commissioner in Adamawa state, said a suicide bomber detonated explosives at the mosque at about 1 p.m. (12:00 GMT) and a second bomber exploded a device 200 meters away as worshippers fled.

“As I am talking to you now, 24 persons are confirmed dead and the scene is cordoned off by anti-bomb squads and other security personnel,” state police spokesman Othman Abubakar was quoted as saying by AP.

It was the second time in six months that dozens have been killed in an attack on a Mubi mosque. Last November, a teenage suicide bomber attacked worshippers as they gathered for morning prayers, killing at least 50 people in one of the region’s deadliest assaults in years.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but the blasts bore the hallmarks of the armed Boko Haram group, which has waged a deadly campaign of violence in Africa’s most populous country since 2009, and often deploys suicide bombers in crowded places.

More than 20,000 people have been killed in the insurgency, which has also forced some two million to flee their homes.

Boko Haram held territory in Adamawa state in 2014, but troops pushed the group out in early 2015 and Mubi was relatively peaceful until the suicide bomb attack in November 2017.