Nigeria's Boko Haram Named World's Deadliest Organization; Several Killed In Attacks In Kano And Yola

Two suicide bombers, suspected of belonging to the Nigerian militant group Boko Haram, blew themselves up Wednesday in the northern Nigerian city of Kano, killing at least 14 people. The incident comes a day after an attack rocked the eastern city of Yola that left over 30 people dead. The attacks come as Boko Haram was named the deadliest extremist group in a study published by the Institute for Economics and Peace on Wednesday.

The explosions in Kano, the country's second-biggest city, occurred around 4 p.m., local time, (10:00 a.m. EST) at the Farm Centre phone market, near the center of the city. Despite the attack bearing hallmarks of a Boko Haram strike, nobody has taken responsibility for it. "Over 100 persons injured and 14 others lost their lives in today’s market bomb blast in Kano," Sani Datti, a spokesman for the National Emergency Management Agency, said, according to Reuters.

The attack in the eastern city of Yola had killed at least 34 people and injured another 80.

The extremist group, which has killed thousands of people in the region, is accused of kidnapping over 200 schoolgirls from Chibok in eastern Nigerian state of Borno last year. Since May, when the Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari took office, the group has killed over 1,000 people.

The latest attacks come even as Buhari condemned corruption in the country, blaming it as a roadblock in fighting the militant group. Buhari had also accused the previous government’s security adviser Sambo Dasuki, of collecting over $2 billion, which was allocated to purchase warplanes, helicopters and other military gear to fight Boko Haram.

"Thousands of needless Nigerian deaths would have been avoided" if the money was spent properly, Femi Adesina, an adviser to Buhari said, according to ABC News.

Dasuki has denied the allegations, the New York Times reported.

A statement released Wednesday by the Nigerian government, said, according to the Times: “President Buhari reassures Nigerians that his administration is very much determined to wipe out Boko Haram in Nigeria and bring all perpetrators of these heinous crimes against humanity to justice.”

According to the study published Wednesday, the group was responsible for 6,664 deaths last year, a 300 percent jump, and much higher than any other terrorist group in the world. Boko Haram was also behind half of all deaths due to terrorism worldwide, the Times reported. Iraq, Syria and Nigeria witnessed the most deaths, according to the study. The Islamic State group, also known as ISIS, to which Boko Haram pledged allegiance in March, killed 6,073 people last year.

“In Nigeria, private citizens are overwhelmingly targeted, most often with firearms resulting in very high levels of deaths per attack,” the report said, according to the Times. Since 2009, Nigeria has seen over 15,000 deaths as government forces and insurgents in the country clash.

At least $117 billion has been spent globally to fight terrorism, the study estimated.