Female suicide bombers attack communities in Borno

                                         

Barely 24 hours after a suicide bomber attacked a mosque in Maiduguri killing at least 18 worshippers, two female suicide bombers on Saturday found their way into a crowded suburb of the troubled city, with one of them succeeding in blowing off her self while the second got arrested and disarmed before she could trigger off the explosive belt worn under her garment, security sources and witnesses have reported. The incident happened in Dala-Yazare, a suburb located some 4km away from Maiduguri, along the Biu-Maiduguri road.

An operative of the Civillian-JTF, who asked not to be named, told Newsmen on phone that “they were two suicide bombers, one was arrested now, but the other was able to detonate the bomb…”.

The source did not have much time to give details of how the second female suicide bomber was nabbed, neither did he give details of the extent of damage caused by the deafening blast that echoed over the city of Maiduguri at about 7:50am.

Details remain sketchy for now even as tension continues to mount in Maiduguri over the spate of suicide attacks that have now become a daily affair. On Friday, a lone suicide bomber rode a bicycle into a crowded mosque, joined a congregation already in the middle of the early morning prayer, and seconds later touched off the massive improvised explosives device he was carrying.

The explosive blew off the entire roof of the mosque, bored a massive hole on the concrete wall, and left mangled pieces of human flesh littering the charred walls and floors of the mosque, as though it was an abattoir. Borno state governor, Kashim Shettima, visited the scene where he lacked words to describe the pains he felt.

The state government has created a new ministry for rehabilitation and reconstruction of areas destroyed by Boko Haram terrorists with the aim of fast-tracking the return of displaced persons to communities liberated by troops of the Nigeria military.

But with the current hike in the spate of attacks by Boko Haram, lives appear to be safer in the IDP camps than the so-liberated communities.