Nigeria: Six kamikazes blow themselves up in Damboa, kill many

In Nigeria, six suicide bombers, most of them teenagers, blew themselves up in the night of Saturday to Sunday June 17 in the town of Damboa in Borno State.

Official sources report 20 dead and 43 wounded. The attack has not been claimed yet, but many Nigerian sources are already linked to the modus operandi of the Boko Haram-linked West African armed group linked to ISIS.

The alleged kamikazes, young girls, mingled with people celebrating the end of Ramadan, Eid el-Fitr.

They blew themselves up, according to an official of Nema, the Nigerian Agency for Emergency Management.

“The alleged kamikazes, young girls, mingled with people celebrating the end of Ramadan, Eid el-Fitr. They blew themselves up. 20 people were killed. The youngest victims are 12, 13 years old. 43 others were injured. Of these, 12 are in critical condition. UN helicopters evacuated them to Maiduguri. For now, no one has claimed responsibility for the attack.”

This new attack, 88 kilometers from Maiduguri, the capital of the state of Borno, illustrates yet again the difficulty of preventing and foiling suicide attacks . Moreover, the strategy used by the alleged perpetrators to target, in split time, crowds gathered is a challenge to the Nigerian authorities.

This asymmetric war tactic is also an additional security problem for Abuja, especially just months away from the 2019 general and local elections.