Suspected Boko Haram Bombing In Kaduna State Kills At Least 25 People, Governor Says

At least 25 people, including children, were killed from a blast in northern Nigeria’s Kaduna state on Tuesday. The bomb detonated on the fringes of Zaira city as residents welcomed the new chairman of the interim management committee of at the secretariat of the Sabon-Gari local government council. The explosion wounded dozens others, state governor Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai said in a statement.

"The city of Zaria today suffered a terrible act of infamy," El-Rufai said. "The casualty count as at 12 noon is 25 fatalities, including a two-year old child. Thirty-two injured persons are being treated at the Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital, Zaria and other hospitals in the city."

The governor announced the deployment of additional security forces across Kaduna state and also urged resident to avoid large gatherings. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, but it bore the hallmarks of the Islamist militant group Boko Haram, which has killed more than 200 people in Nigeria in the past week.

At least 44 people were killed on Sunday in two devastating attacks in Jos city in central Plateau State, which were blamed on Boko Haram militants. One took place at a mosque where a witness said “there were victims beyond what we could count.” The other attack occurred nearby when a suicide bomber walked into a restaurant and detonated himself, according to the New York Times.

After Sunday’s attacks, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari’s spokesman reaffirmed to local media the government’s “total commitment to doing everything possible to eradicate Boko Haram, terrorism and mindless extremism from Nigeria in the shortest possible time.” Buhari, who took office May 29, was elected largely on his promise to crush the terror group.

More than 15,000 people have died and nearly 1.5 million others have been displaced since Boko Haram launched its brutal insurgency in northern Nigeria six years ago, according to the United Nations refugee agency.