85 dead in new Boko Haram strike on Nigeria's Maiduguri
Maiduguri
Boko Haram carried out its deadliest attacks on the key northeast Nigerian city of Maiduguri since President Muhammadu Buhari came to power, killing scores in a series of coordinated bomb blasts.
Police in the Borno state capital said at least 54 people died in Sunday's co-ordinated strikes, with 90 injured, but residents caught up in the explosions said as many as 85 lost their lives.
The attacks on Sunday night in the Ajilari Cross area and nearby Gomari, near the city's airport, killed and maimed worshippers at a mosque, bystanders and football fans watching a televised match.
The army and rescuers said the explosions were caused by homemade devices but one local and the police said a female suicide bomber also blew herself up.
Maiduguri, where Boko Haram was founded in 2002, has been the epicentre of the six-year-old insurgency and repeatedly attacked since Buhari assumed office.
Some 26 people were killed in a suicide attack on a Maiduguri mosque on May 30, while another attack on a cattle market three days later killed 13. The day after that strike, 18 were killed in a bomb blast.
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