Suspected suicide bomber kills 12 in Nigeria's Borno state
MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (Reuters) -A suspected female suicide bomber killed at least 12 people and injured several others at a fish market on Friday night in Nigeria's northeastern Borno state, police said on Saturday.
Borno state police spokesperson Nahum Kenneth Daso said in a statement that a woman with an improvised explosive device strapped to her body, infiltrated a crowd at the fish market before detonating it among civilians.
Daso said those injured were taken to hospital.
Local residents said at least 30 people were injured.
Borno state is the heartland of an insurgency - primarily driven by the Islamist armed group Boko Haram - that has been raging for the past 16 years, killing thousands and displacing at least 2 million people, according to aid agencies.
(Writing by MacDonald Dzirutwe; Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise)
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Star
7 hours ago
- The Star
US forces conduct raid in northern Syria against IS target, sources say
ATMEH, Syria (Reuters) -U.S. forces took part in a pre-dawn raid in northwestern Syria early on Wednesday that targeted a member of the Islamic State group, a U.S. official and a Syrian security source said. A second Syrian security source and Syria's state-owned Al-Ikhbariya said the target was killed as he tried to escape. It was the second known raid in northern Syria by U.S. troops since former President Bashar al-Assad was ousted in December. The Islamist-led government that replaced him has pledged to prevent a resurgence of Islamic State and is part of an anti-IS alliance that includes the U.S.-led coalition fighting the group. It was not immediately clear who the Islamic State member targeted on Wednesday was. The U.S. official said he was a suspected high-value target. The first Syrian source said he was an Iraqi national and was married to a French national. It was not immediately clear what happened to his wife. The Pentagon did not immediately have any public comment on the reports. The operation began at around 2 a.m. (1100 GMT), according to the Syrian security sources and neighbours in the town of Atmeh, in Idlib province. Helicopters and drones provided air cover, one Syrian security source and residents said. Local Syrian forces set up a cordon around the neighbourhood but U.S. forces conducted the actual raid, the second security source said. Abdelqader al-Sheikh, a neighbour, said he was up late with his son and heard a noise in the yard next door. "I called out, 'who are you?' and they started speaking to me in English, telling me to put my hands up," Sheikh told Reuters. He said the armed forces stayed on the roofs of surrounding houses for the next two hours and that he could hear someone nearby speaking Arabic in an Iraqi accent. In July, the Pentagon said its forces had conducted a raid in Aleppo province resulting in the death of a senior Islamic State leader and his two adult Islamic State-affiliated sons. Idlib has been a hiding spot for senior Islamic State figures for years. U.S. forces killed IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in the village of Barisha in Idlib province in 2019 and his successor, Abu Ibrahim al-Hashemi al-Quraishi, in Atmeh in 2022. (Reporting by Karam al-Masri in Atmeh, Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman and Idrees Ali in WashingtonWriting by Maya GebeilyEditing by Frances Kerry)
The Star
a day ago
- The Star
Nigerian court to rule on bail for deadly church attack suspects on Sept 10
FILE PHOTO: People attend a mass memorial service for victims killed in an attack by gunmen during a Sunday mass service, at St. Francis Catholic Church in Owo, Ondo, Nigeria June 17, 2022. REUTERS/Temilade Adelaja/File Photo ABUJA (Reuters) -Five men charged with carrying out a deadly Islamist militant attack on a Catholic church in southwestern Nigeria in 2022 were remanded in custody on Tuesday until a court ruling on September 10 on their application for bail. The suspects, who pleaded not guilty when arraigned last week, appeared in court at the start of their trial on Tuesday, seeking bail three years after their arrest. The massacre at St. Francis Catholic Church in the town of Owo that killed at least 50 worshippers and wounded over 100 others shocked the nation, highlighting the growing reach of Islamist militants beyond Nigeria's northeast. Abdullahi Muhammad, their lawyer, told the court that their prolonged detention was unjustified and asked for them to be released on bail. Prosecutor Ayodele Adedipe opposed the bail, citing national security risks and alleged links to foreign terrorist groups. He added that discrepancies in the bail application and alleged threats to witnesses were further grounds for denial. They were remanded in Department of State Services custody, where they have been held since their arrests, until a judge decides on their application next month. (Reporting by Camillus Eboh; Writing by Elisha Bala-Gbogbo; Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise)
The Sun
2 days ago
- The Sun
Burkina Faso expels UN coordinator over child rights report
BURKINA FASO has declared United Nations regional coordinator Carol Flore-Smereczniak persona non grata over a U.N. report alleging violations against children in the West African country, a government spokesperson said on Monday. Burkinabe authorities were neither involved in the preparation of the U.N. report, titled 'Children and Armed Conflict in Burkina Faso', nor informed of the study's conclusions before publication, the government spokesperson said in a statement. The United Nations expressed regret over the decision, U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said on Monday. 'The Organization is accorded privileges and immunities, including the right for its staff members to remain in Burkina Faso in order to perform their functions on behalf of the Organization,' he said. The government accused the United Nations of making baseless assertions and stating falsehoods in the report, without citing relevant investigations or court rulings. Flore-Smereczniak, who was forced to leave the country, has more than 20 years of experience in development, security, humanitarian, conflict and post-conflict settings and was appointed to the post in Burkina Faso last year, according to the United Nations. Violence fuelled by a decade-long battle against Islamist militants linked to Al Qaeda and Islamic State has worsened in Burkina Faso and neighbouring countries where power was seized in a series of coups from 2020 to 2023. The U.N. has in the past condemned what it says have been killings, abuses and abductions of children in the Sahel regional conflict as well as the recruitment of child soldiers. Dujarric reaffirmed the organization's commitment to continue engaging with Burkina Faso's authorities to support the nation and its people. - Reuters
