A bomb exploded on Wednesday evening at a tea house in Kawuri village, located in Borno State, northeast Nigeria, resulting in the deaths of 19 people and injuring approximately two dozen others, security sources said on Thursday.
“There was an explosion at a tea joint in Kawuri around 8:00 pm yesterday. We have recovered 19 dead bodies and 27 injured,” Ibrahim Liman, a member of an anti-militia that works with the army, told AFP.
This blast which termed one of the most lethal attacks in recent years in northeast Nigeria, the region where terrorist violence has been on the decline.
Earlier this month, female suicide bombers targeted a wedding, a funeral and a hospital in coordinated attacks in northern Nigeria that killed at least 18 people. The insurgency, which has spilled across borders around Lake Chad, has killed more than 35,000 people, displaced 2.6 million others and created a humanitarian crisis.
Boko Haram, with one branch allied to the Islamic State group, wants to install an Islamic state in Nigeria, West Africa’s oil giant of 170 million people divided almost equally between a mainly Christian south and a predominantly Muslim north.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsThe resurgence of suicide bombings in Borno raised significant concerns about the security situation in the region.
Authorities imposed a curfew in the city. Gwoza is near Chibok, where 276 schoolgirls were abducted in 2014. Nearly 100 of the girls are still in captivity.
Since then, at least 1,500 students have been kidnapped across Nigeria as armed groups find the practice a lucrative way to fund their criminal activities and take control of villages.
With inputs from agencies.