Multiple suicide bomb blasts in Nigeria kill 19 and leave 23 injured

Four suicide bombers have killed 19 people in a series of attacks that targeted a civilian self-defence force and the people who gathered to mourn their deaths, police in Nigeria said.

Four suicide bombers have killed 19 people in a series of attacks that targeted a civilian self-defence force and the people who gathered to mourn their deaths, police in Nigeria said.

It is the latest in a spate of suicide bomb attacks on the city in the last few weeks. Borno, of which Maiduguri is the capital, is the Nigerian state worst affected by the eight-year-old insurgency by Islamist militant group Boko Haram.

Borno state police commissioner Damian Chukwu said 23 others were wounded in Tuesday night’s attacks.

The police commissioner said 12 of the dead were members of the civilian self-defence force and the other seven people had been mourning them.

At least one of the suicide bombers was female, said a spokesman for the self-defence force, Danbatta Bello.