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At least 50 killed in Nigeria bomb blasts

Four bomb blasts have killed at least 50 people in Maiduguri in Nigeria’s northeast in the worst attacks there since Islamist militants tried to seize the city in two major assaults earlier this year.

There was no immediate claim for the bombings but they bore the hallmarks of the Islamist group Boko Haram, which has been waging a six-year insurgency to carve out an Islamic state in Africa’s biggest economy.

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“We’ve received 50 dead bodies from the blast scenes and 36 injured people,” Salisu Kwaya Bura, chief medical officer of Borno Specialists Hospital, told reporters.

“The state government has directed the treatment for the injured persons to be free.”

A tricycle rider with a bomb tried to enter a fish market on the Baga road in the west of Maiduguri.

The bomb exploded when the tricycle was prevented from going in, Mohammad Ajia, a trader in Baga market, said after fleeing the scene.

Two blasts then hit an area known as the Monday market before a car bomb exploded by a bus station near a Department of State Security (DSS) office, according to a civilian member of a joint task force.

“Men from the anti-bomb squad came a few minutes after the blast to comb the scene, then they started evacuating victims,” Aliyu Musa, a resident in the area near the DSS office, said.

“I saw five mangled bodies being put in vehicles.”

Near the Monday market, casualties were loaded onto waiting ambulances.

“I have counted five ambulances that have evacuated victims from the scene,” Salisu Yaya, a member of a civilian task force, told Reuters from the Monday market area.

“Soldiers are shooting in the air and warding off people at the market.”

City has been target of Boko Haram militants

Maiduguri is the capital of Borno state, the heartland for the militant Islamist group Boko Haram, which has long coveted the city as the capital of an Islamic state they want to carve out of religiously mixed Nigeria.

Suspected Boko Haram militants tried to seize the city at the end of January but were repelled in fighting that killed more than 100 people.

Boko Haram seized territory the size of Belgium last year, which Nigeria’s ill-equipped army has struggled to take back, and the group gained worldwide notoriety in April when members kidnapped more than 200 schoolgirls.

Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan, who is seeking re-election on March 28, has been heavily criticised for the failure to crush the insurgents.

The vote was postponed for six weeks from February 14 for security reasons.

Since the delay, Chadian troops cooperating with the Nigerians have reclaimed some important towns in Borno.

The army has also been able to push the militants out of some territories in neighbouring Adamawa and Yobe states.

Reuters

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