Suicide bombers in Nigerian attack

FOUR people were killed on Saturday evening when suicide bombers blew themselves up in a village on the outskirts of Maiduguri city in northeastern Nigeria.

Borno state police spokesman Victor Isuku said the incident occurred when three bombers – a man and two women – tried to enter Umarari village just outside Maiduguri.

“They detonated the IEDs (improvised explosive devices) strapped to their bodies while running to different directions,” Isuku said.

Among the dead was a local vigilante, and a woman and her two children, he said.

Another eight people were wounded.

The three bombers died in the blasts.

The Borno state capital of Maiduguri is the birthplace also of Boko Haram, a radical Islamist group that has killed over 20 000 people and forced 2.6 million from their homes since taking up arms against the Nigerian government in 2009.

Despite claims from the Nigerian military that the group is on the verge of defeat, suicide bomb attacks remain a threat to civilians, particularly in Maiduguri.— AFP