At least 67 people died in a wave of bombings and shootings carried out in northeast Nigeria overnight, LEADERSHIP gathered.
Although no group has claimed responsibility, sources allege that the Boko Haram sect may have launched the attacks.
According to Red Cross official, Ibrahim Bulama, the attacks which centered around Damaturu, the capital of Yobe state, started Friday with a car bomb exploding outside a three-story building used as a military office and barracks in the city, with many uniformed security agents dying in the blast.
Also, gunmen went through the town, blowing up a First Bank PLC branch and attacking at least three police stations and some churches, leaving them in rubble, he said.
Gunfire continued through the night and gunmen raided the village of Potiskum near the capital as well, leaving at least two people dead there.
On Saturday morning, people began hesitantly leaving their homes, seeing the destruction left behind, including military and police vehicles burned by the gunmen, with the burned corpses of the drivers who died in their seats.
Bulama spoke to The Associated Press by telephone Saturday morning from a common Muslim burial ground in the city as his family buried a relative and friend, a police officer who died after suffering a gunshot wound to the head in the fighting.
“There's that fear that something might possibly happen again,” he said.
The attacks around Damaturu came after four separate bombings struck Maiduguri. One blast detonated around noon outside the El-Kanemi Theological College where parents had gathered. Police said others had entered the college grounds to attend Friday prayers at a mosque located on its campus.
?
Witnesses who spoke to the AP said they saw ambulances carry away at least six wounded people from the site. Another bombing alongside a road in Maiduguri killed four people, local police commissioner Simeon Midenda said.
A short time later, suicide bombers driving a black SUV attempted to enter a base for the military unit charged with protecting the city from Boko Haram fighters, military spokesman Lt. Col. Hassan Ifijeh Mohammed said. The SUV couldn't enter the gate and the explosives were detonated outside of the base, which damaged several buildings in the military's compound, Mohammed said.
Mohammed said blasts occurred at three other places in Maiduguri besides the base, with no one being killed.
The bombings come ahead of Eid al-Adha, or the feast of sacrifice, when Muslims around the world slaughter sheep and cattle in remembrance of Abraham's near-sacrifice of his son.?
Additional details from AP
?