No fewer than 30 worshippers Thursday died in a mosque bombed in and out by suspected Boko Haram agents in the outskirts of Maiduguri, capital of Borno State.
“All the people in the mosque died. Not a single one escaped,” said Muhtari Ahmadu, a trader near the scene, while another witness said he had counted at least 42 bodies after the blasts.
Borno state police confirmed that the mosque was hit by twin bombings but gave a lower toll of about 14 dead.
Following the explosions, the mosque collapsed and injured “many people praying”, the police said in a statement.
“Casualties have been evacuated to UMTH (University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital) and specialist hospitals in Maiduguri,” it added.
The bombers slipped into the mosque disguised as worshippers, witnesses said.
One of the attackers set off the first blast when he entered the mosque, they said. The second bomber detonated his explosives soon after, when many had rushed to the scene to help the first victims.
“When rescuers and sympathisers gathered in front of the place, the second one went off, killing many of them,” Marte said.
The blasts occurred around 6:30 pm (1730 GMT) in Molai, in the western suburbs of Maiduguri, where worshippers had gathered for evening prayers, the witnesses said.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack but suspicion fell on Boko Haram, which was founded in Borno’s state capital Maiduguri in 2002
.An Al-jazeera correspondent who was in Molai had reported between 14 and 25 people dead. Accounts were still conflicting, because the bombings happened late in the evening.
“We started running up and down, motorists drove and rushed out of the area including Keke NAPEP riders with their families. Everywhere was confused and panic took over the entire place
A witness at the scene told Vanguard online, “Male Suicide bombers detonated multiple improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in different locations while over 30 Muslims were in one of the mosque at Molai outskirts of Maiduguri metropolis observing their Magrib prayer around 6.10 pm Thursday evening”.
” Muslim were just observing their maghrib prayers in a mosque at Molai then a heavy loud sound echoed the air and next we heard lucky survivors shouting it is bomb blast.
“We started running up and down, motorists drove and rushed out of the area including Keke NAPEP riders with their families. Everywhere was confused and panic took over the entire place.
“You need to see how residents were running, some even had to park their belongings and leave the area tensed and confused as nobody knows what will happen next, But we are yet to get the details of what happened and how many people were killed and how many were wounded.”