A suicide bombing at a Shiite ceremony killed at least 15 people in northeastern Nigeria on Monday, while 132 inmates were at large after a daring prison break.
The attack in Potiskum, the commercial capital of Yobe State, targeted Shiite Muslims marking Ashura, the anniversary of the death of Imam Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Mohammed.
The prison break saw gunmen use dynamite to blast into the facility in Kogi State late on Sunday, more than two years after Boko Haram attacked the same facility.
Photo: AFP
Meanwhile, in Adamawa State, also northeast Nigeria, tens of thousands of people fled their homes to refugee camps after the militants seized control of the commercial hub of Mubi, the latest of more than two dozen towns and villages to have fallen into extremist hands.
Former Nigerian vice president Atiku Abubakar, who is running to be the opposition flag bearer in February polls and is from the northeast, voiced disbelief that “a handful of terrorists” had been able to capture such a huge stretch of land.
The three incidents underscored the worsening security crisis in Nigeria and cast further doubt on government claims that a ceasefire was in place to end five years of violence by Boko Haram.
Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau on Friday dismissed government assertions of a ceasefire and peace talks as “a lie.” He also claimed that the 219 schoolgirls kidnapped in mid-April had converted to Islam and been “married off.”
In Potiskum, police and witnesses said a bomb went off 10m from a seminary where Shiite worshipers had gathered.
“We lost 15 of our members in a suicide blast at the end of our Ashura procession,” the head of the city’s Shiite community, Mustapha Lawan Nasidi, told reporters.
At least 50 people were injured, he said, adding that several others died when troops deployed to the scene opened fire. There was no immediate response from the military.
Potiskum has seen repeated violence, including attacks on a Shiite community vastly outnumbered by Sunnis in the mainly Muslim north.
In Kogi, national police spokesman Emmanuel Ojukwu said unidentified gunmen blew up Koton Karfi prison with explosives late on Sunday, allowing dozens of inmates to escape.
“There were 145 prisoners at the time of the attack. One died, eight have been recaptured and four surrendered voluntarily. The rest are at large,” said Jacob Edi, spokesman for Kogi Governor Idris Wada.
Kogi is far south of Boko Haram’s main base of operations, but the extremists claimed a prison raid at the same facility in 2012 that freed more than 100 inmates.
Ojukwu said the raid was not linked to the five-year Islamist uprising, blaming it instead on “criminal activity.”
In Adamawa State, the National Emergency Management Agency said they had recorded at least 10,496 internally displaced people in five camps in the state capital, Yola, after violence in Mubi.
Thousands of residents from Mubi, a town of 150,000 which is Adamawa’s second-largest, have fled since Boko Haram’s takeover on Wednesday last week.
Mubi had been a safe haven for people fleeing Boko Haram offensives in surrounding areas.
“How is it possible that a great nation like Nigeria should find itself in a situation where a handful of terrorists is able to invade a town as large as Mubi,” Abubakar said.
He said that despite a reported increase in security spending, the military has proved “unable to cope and unable to defend,” against a formerly small-scale insurgency.
Soldiers reportedly fled Mubi to the town of Hong, according to residents who saw them en route.
Residents trapped in Mubi said Boko Haram “came with their women and children and are now in firm control.”
“They move about in vehicles and on foot patrolling the streets and keep telling people we are now under the authority of an Islamic state,” Saleh Abdullahi said.
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