Officials of the Civilian Joint Task Force, who participated in the evacuation of victims from the scene of Thursday night’s bombings in Maiduguri said at least 26 bodies were evacuated from the scene of the blast.
Twenty-five others were rushed to hospital with various degrees of injuries, the officials said.
The officials, who requested not to be named because they had no permission to speak on the matter, said the blasts were carried out by two suicide bombers.
“One of the bombers attacked a mosque during the Maghrib prayers; the other detonated the bomb at the nearby mosque, almost immediately,” one of our sources said.
The police and officials of the Borno state government are yet to comment on the incident.
Below is our earlier report on the incident.
Two deadly explosions on Thursday hit Maiduguri town as a suspected suicide bomber targeted a mosque in a suburb called Mulai.
The sound of the explosions echoed over the Borno state capital at about 6:20pm.
Details of the casualties could not be immediately ascertained.
A senior official of the Civilian JTF, who asked not to be named in this report, said the two blasts happened near a mosque in Mulai, some 6 kilometres away from Maiduguri town along the Maiduguri-Biu highways.
“We have two bomb explosions this evening in Mulai near a mosque there”, he said.
“The bombings happened during prayer time. One cannot immediately give details of the incident but I have sent my boys over there and am still waiting for their report from the scene.”
An other official of the Civilian JTF, who gave his name as Bamusa, told PREMIUM TIMES that “the blasts happened in a mosque during Magrib prayer and many people were killed, sadly. I have nine injured persons in our trucks now and I am heading for the hospital to get them treated because they are in bad shape “.
