1. Skip to content
  2. Skip to main menu
  3. Skip to more DW sites
Live TV
Latest audioLatest videos
In focus
German coalition collapseMiddle EastUS election

Boko Haram kills scores in Nigeria

July 4, 2015

At least 55 people have been killed in an attack by suicide bombers in a Nigerian village near Maiduguri. According to local residents, the bombers were women who had exploded themselves in the midst of fleeing people.

https://p.dw.com/p/1Fsln
Nigerien soldiers patrol in Bosso, near the Nigerian border, on May 25, 2015 (Photo: ISSOUF SANOGO/AFP/Getty Images)
Image: Getty Images/AFP/I. Sanogo

The deadly attack happened Friday night in the village of Zabamari, which is 10 kilometers (six miles) from the extremist group Boko Haram's stronghold Maiduguri. In the past three days, the jihadis have killed more than 200 people in a series of attacks, witnesses said on Saturday.

"A large number of [Boko Haram] fighters poured into the village, overpowering government forces deployed to prevent the insurgents from reaching Maiduguri," Haladu Musa, a village resident, told the AFP news agency.

As the government's troops retreated and people started to flee the village, several female suicide bombers blew themselves in their midst, killing scores of people, Musa said, adding that the Islamist militants torched "almost half the village" before eventually being repulsed by the Nigerian army.

Maiduguri
Image: DW

"A total of six suicide bombers had detonated themselves around the garage killing scores of people while some were also wounded. A soldier also died," Nigeria's defense headquarters said in a statement.

On Thursday, two female suicide bombers killed 11 people in several villages in the north eastern Borno State. Boko Haram fighters had murdered about 150 people in the same region earlier in the week.

President Muhammadu Buhari, who was sworn in on May 29, condemned Thursday's attacks as "inhuman and barbaric" and vowed to end the six-year-old insurgency which has claimed over 15,000 lives and displaced 1.5 million people in the African country.

shs/sms (AFP, dpa)