Fourteen
worshippers were killed Wednesday when a suicide bomber attacked a mosque on
Nigeria’s border with Cameroon, civilian vigilantes told AFP.
The suspected
Boko Haram jihadist blew himself up amid worshippers inside the mosque in
Gamboru around 5:00 am (0400 GMT), shortly before morning prayers. “Fourteen
bodies have been pulled out of the rubble,” said Umar Kachalla, a civilian
militiaman, who said the mosque had been completely destroyed. “Only the
muezzin has survived and we believe more bodies are buried under the debris,”
said Kachalla. “The death toll may likely rise.”
An hour earlier, a patrol of
vigilantes spotted four suspected suicide bombers on the outskirts of the town
and arrested one of them after a chase, said a second vigilante, Shehu Mada.
“Two of them turned back and fled while the fourth disappeared into the
darkness and we believe it was he who attacked the mosque,” Mada said. Boko
Haram’s eight-year insurgency against the government of Nigeria has spilled
into neighbouring Niger, Chad and Cameroon, killing around 20,000 people and
displacing more than 2.6 million.
In August 2014, the group seized Gamboru, a
trading hub along with neighbouring town of Ngala. Nigerian troops retook both
towns in September 2015 with the help of Chadian forces following months-long
offensives. Despite the recapture of the area, Boko Haram fighters continue to
launch sporadic attacks, laying ambush on troops and vehicles as well as
attacking and abducting farmers.
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