Two suicide bombings ‘rock’ North Nigeria killing at least nine people – UN gets release of 876 children detained by Nigerian army

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People clear the scene after an explosion in Maiduguri, Nigeria on Oct 29. Twin explosions from female suicide bombers suspected to be with Boko Haram killed nine people and injured more than 20 in Nigeria’s northeastern city of Maiduguri on Saturday morning, officials and witnesses said. (AP)
People clear the scene after an explosion in Maiduguri, Nigeria on Oct 29. Twin explosions from female suicide bombers suspected to be with Boko Haram killed nine people and injured more than 20 in Nigeria’s northeastern city of Maiduguri on Saturday morning, officials and witnesses said. (AP)

KANO, Nigeria, Oct 29, (Agencies): Two suicide bombings rocked Nigeria’s northeast city of Maiduguri on Saturday, killing at least nine people and injuring scores of others, emergency services said. One explosion happened outside a gas station, while the other was near the Bakassi camp for internally displaced persons (IDP), underscoring the continued threat from Boko Haram jihadists who are suspected of being behind the attacks.

“Two suicide bombers riding in motorised rickshaws this morning detonated their explosives 10 minutes apart, with one of them targeting the Bakassi IDP camp on the outskirts of the city,” Mohammed Kanar, spokesman for Nigeria Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), said. “One of the bombers tried to enter the Bakassi IDP camp but the explosives detonated at the gates, killing four people,” Kanar said. “The explosives on the other one detonated minutes later as he rode with two other people towards the (Bakassi) IDP camp near the fuel depot.”

Following the blast, one of the yellow rickshaws burst apart in half, while the ground was littered with metal shards. “Nine persons lost their lives with twenty-four persons injured and evacuated to various hospitals,” NEMA said in a statement posted on Twitter.

Boko Haram has devastated northeast Nigeria in its quest to create an Islamist state, killing over 20,000 people and displacing 2.6 million from their homes. Since taking up arms against the Nigerian government in 2009, Boko Haram has disrupted trade routes and farms. Meanwhile, the United Nations has negotiated the release this year of 876 children detained at a Nigerian army barracks holding suspected collaborators of the Boko Haram Islamic extremist group, the UN Children’s Fund announced Friday.

The agency fears hundreds more children are still being held at the barracks in the northeastern city of Maiduguri, the UNICEF spokeswoman for Nigeria, Doune Porter, told The Associated Press. This is the first time the UN has reported negotiating the releases, though Nigeria’s army routinely reports how many minors are among the hundreds of detainees it frees after interrogations it says establish they have no links to Boko Haram.

Some of the 876 children released since December had been living in areas held by Boko Haram and were detained when those areas were liberated, according to Manuel Fontaine, UNICEF’s director for West and Central Africa. Porter said many of the freed children were under 5 years old, some still being breast-fed, and were detained because their parents were suspects. Nigeria’s military and police routinely lock up children along with parents suspected of a crime. In the biggest single release negotiated by UNICEF, 560 people were freed in September, including 430 children and some of their mothers, Porter said.

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