3 suicide bombing by Boko Haram killed 30 persons in Konduga

Three suicide bombing by Boko Haram on 16, 17 and 18 June  killed 30 people in the northeastern Nigerian town of Konduga.

“The death toll from the attack has so far increased because of the lack of Emergency service in the country. The high number of fatalities was because emergency responders had been unable to reach the site of the blast quickly. Nor were they equipped to deal with large numbers of wounded.

Lack of an appropriate health facility to handle such huge emergency situation and the delay in obtaining security clearance to enable us deploy from Maiduguri in good time led to the high death toll.

Three bombers detonated their explosives outside a hall in Konduga, southeast of the Borno state capital Maiduguri, where football fans were watching a match on TV.

Two other bombers who had mingled among the crowd at a tea stall nearby also detonated their suicide vests.

The terrorist group known as Boko Haram began its bloody insurgency in northeastern Nigeria in 2009, but it has since spread into neighboring Niger, Chad and Cameroon, prompting a regional military response.

Boko Haram split into two factions in mid-2016. One, led by long-time leader Abubakar Shekau, is notorious for suicide bombings and indiscriminate killings of civilians. Shekau pledged allegiance to ISIS leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi in March 2015, but ISIS central only gives formal backing to the other faction, which it calls Islamic State West Africa Province.

Neither faction has claimed responsibility for Sunday’s attack.

Boko Haram has targeted Konduga in the past, including a February 2018 triple suicide bombing at a fish market that killed at least 18 people. In July, a suicide bomber detonated his explosives in a mosque in Konduga, killing eight worshippers.

In September, a Boko Haram faction raided Amarwa, a town in Konduga district, along with another nearby village. The fighters fired indiscriminately at residents fleeing their homes, a local militia leader said at the time.

Earlier this year the Nigerian military evacuated residents of Jakana village in Konduga ahead of a planned offensive against the Islamic State faction of Boko Haram.