At least eight persons were confirmed dead and 15 others critically injured Friday evening after two teenage female suicide bombers attacked a residential area of Dikwa, 80 kilometres from Maiduguri, Borno State capital.
News of the attack got to Maiduguri late Saturday afternoon as local government officials from the attacked community said they could not mobilise for emergency response due to lack of communication facilities.
Boko Haram, three years ago, destroyed virtually every social infrastructure like telecom masts in the area, at a time it held the town.
The military celebrated the recapture of Dikwa in late 2015. Most of the earlier displaced residents of Dikwa later returned to their community from Cameroon.
On Friday night, residents say, two female suicide bombers sneaked into a government built 20-unit housing estate in Dikwa and carried out coordinated attack there.
About eight persons, excluding the suicide bombers, died.
The chairman of Dikwa council, Rawa Goni-Modu, who led a team of rescue officials to evacuate the injured persons from Dikwa to the hospital in Maiduguri, informed journalists that 15 persons were also injured.
“The attack took place last (Friday) night when two Boko Haram girls blew up the bomb they carried on their bodies within the 20-housing in Dikwa,” he said.
He said some of the injured ones had been given medication and are responding to treatment.
The attack is the latest in a series of intensified attacks carried by Boko Haram suicide bombers since March this year.
Suicide attacks by Boko Haram has become almost a daily occurrence around Maiduguri in the past three months.
The worsening trend prompted the Nigeria chief of army staff, Tukur Buratai to issue a 40-day ultimatum to the commanders of the counterinsurgency operations in the northeast to arrest the group’s leader, Abubakar Shekau, and also end the insurgency.
Acting President Yemi Osinbajo had this week ordered all the military service chiefs to relocate to the northeast to personally coordinate the war against Boko Haram.
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