Two female suicide bombers killed more than 60 people at a camp for
people displaced by an insurgency of the jihadist Boko Haram group in
the northeast Nigerian town of Dikwa, military and emergency officials
said on Wednesday.
The attack occurred 85 km (50 miles) outside the capital of Borno
state, centre of the seven-year insurgency, they said. It took place on
Tuesday, but a breakdown in the telephone system prevented the incident
being made public earlier.
The two female suicide bombers sneaked into an internally displaced
persons (IDP) camp and detonated themselves in the middle of it,
emergency officials and the military source said.
The chairman of the State Emergency Management Agency, Satomi Ahmad, added that 78 people were injured.
No group claimed responsibility but the attack bore the hallmarks of
Boko Haram, which has frequently used female bombers and even children
to hit targets.
The militant group has recently increased the frequency and
deadliness of attacks with three at the end of January. At least 65
people were killed outside Borno state capital Maiduguri on Jan. 31.
Since it lost territory to a government counter-offensive last year,
Boko Haram has reverted to hit-and-run attacks on villages and suicide
bombings at places of worship or markets.
Boko Haram has only rarely targeted camps housing people displaced by
the conflict and Tuesday's attack was the first one to kill victims in
Borno state.
The military said militants made one abortive attempt on a camp on
the outskirts of Maiduguri on Jan. 31. Boko Haram hit a Nigerian IDP
camp for the first time last September, in the Adamawa state capital of
Yola.
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