Blast at Nigeria mosque kills 5, injures 35 in apparent suicide attack

A bomb exploded during prayers at a mosque in Nigeria’s northeastern city of Maiduguri on Wednesday night, killing five people in what police described as a likely suicide attack.

Police said 35 people were also injured in the attack.

Nahum Daso, spokesperson for police command in the surrounding state of Borno, said in a statement that fragments of a suspected suicide vest were found at the site.

Borno State Governor Babagana Zulum condemned the attack, calling it “barbaric and inhumane,” the Reuters news agency reports. In a statement, he urged heightened vigilance in places of worship and public spaces during the festive season. 

The bombing is the latest in a series of attacks in Nigeria’s troubled northern region, where the country is battling multiple armed groups, including Boko Haram and its splinter group, Islamic State West Africa Province.

Several thousand people have been killed, with millions displaced from their homes since 2009, according to the United Nations.

No group has claimed responsibility for the latest attack, but the use of suicide bombers has been heavily attributed to Boko Haram, the Islamic militant group that has claimed responsibility for many such attacks across the northeastern region.

Analysts say the group’s use of suicide bombers has subsided over the past few years but it still has the capacity to launch such attacks. In July 2024, a three-pronged suicide attack on a wedding ceremony in Borno raised the specter of a renewed use of the method by the group.