An Improvised Explosive Device (IED) suspected to have been planted by Boko Haram insurgents has detonated in Kawuri village, Konduga Local Government Area of Borno State, and killed 19 people.
This is coming three days after the insurgents attacked a police station in the Jakana town, under the same Konduga LGA, where a policeman and a woman were killed and two patrol vans set ablaze.
A government official from Kawuri village said the bomb went off around 8:05pm at a local tea joint where the villagers gathered for a night chat, adding that dozens of people also got injured.
“Nobody can say exactly how it happened, but we suspected that the bomb was planted, not a suicide bombing.
“We saw the corpses of 19 people with an unspecified number of civilians injured. The injured were evacuated to an undisclosed hospital in Maiduguri for treatment,” he said, on condition of anonymity.
Kawuri community is located about 50 kilometres from Maiduguri, along the Konduga- Bama road.
This incident also occurred 24 hours after an accountant working with the Local Education Authority in Damboa Local Government Area, Shettima Mustapha, lost his life when their vehicle drove on an IEDs along Maiduguri -Damboa-Biu federal highway, with others injured. Efforts to contact the Borno State Police Public Relations Officer, DSP Kenneth Daso, were not successful as his phone could not be reached as at the time of filing this report.