At least 18 people were killed and dozens wounded in a series of suicide bombings at weddings, funerals and other events in northeastern Nigeria on Saturday afternoon, local authorities and police said.
Barkindo Saidu, head of the Borno State Emergency Management Agency, said three female assailants struck at separate locations in Gwoza, a bustling city in Borno state that has been the epicenter of Boko Haram's Islamic insurgency for the past 15 years.
Saidu said the victims included children and pregnant women. Some Nigerian media outlets reported that at least 30 people were killed.
As of Sunday morning, no group had claimed responsibility for the bombing. The blast resembled past attacks carried out by Boko Haram, whose militants have killed tens of thousands of people in Nigeria and displaced more than 2 million people in attacks across the region.
According to preliminary reports seen by The New York Times, Saidu said the first assailant on Saturday detonated a bomb she was carrying at a wedding celebration. The blast killed eight people, including the assailant and the baby she was carrying, according to Borno state police spokesman Kenneth Daso. Saidu said two other assailants then struck near a hospital and at a funeral home for victims of the earlier blast.
Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, has long been battling multiple security crises, including mass kidnappings of people of all ages and walks of life.
Boko Haram militants have kidnapped thousands of teenage girls, forced them into marriage, and coerced many into suicide bombings in schools, markets, religious sites and large public gatherings.
In 2014, Boko Haram fighters abducted 276 schoolgirls from the village of Chibok. The “Chibok Girls,” as they became known, attracted global attention after condemnation by Michelle Obama and activists popularized the slogan “Bring our girls back.”
Ten years later, dozens of people remain missing.
And in 2014, then-Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau declared a caliphate in Gwoza after his fighters seized it. Nigerian troops recaptured the city in 2015 and Shekau was killed in 2021, but Boko Haram fighters have continued to carry out multiple attacks around the city since then.