Blast at mosque in Nigeria kills 5 and injures more than 30 in apparent suicide attack
LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — Five people were killed in Maiduguri, northeastern Nigeria, after a bomb exploded during prayers at a mosque Wednesday evening, a police statement said.
Police added that 35 people were injured in the attack, which they said was likely a suicide bombing.
“Preliminary investigations further suggest that the incident could be a suicide attack, based on the recovery of fragments of a suspected suicide vest and recorded witness statements, while investigations are ongoing to establish the exact cause and circumstances,” Borno State Police Command spokesperson Nahum Daso said in the statement.
Daso said police were conducting a sweep of the area for secondary devices.
The bombing is the latest in a series of attacks in Nigeria’s troubled northern region, where the country is battling several armed groups, including Boko Haram and its splinter group, the Islamic State in West Africa, among others. Several thousand people have been killed and millions have been displaced since 2009, according to the United Nations.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, but the use of suicide bombers has been widely attributed to Boko Haram, the Islamic militant group that has previously claimed responsibility for numerous such attacks in the northeastern region.
Analysts say the group’s use of suicide bombers has declined in recent years, but it still has the capacity to launch such attacks. In July 2024, a triple suicide attack against a wedding ceremony in Borno raised the specter of a new use of this method by the militant group.
