Bomb Blast At Tea Shop In Nigeria Kills 19, Injures 27

A bomb exploded in a teahouse in a village in northeastern Nigeria that has been hit by extremist attacks, killing 19 people and injuring 27, security sources said today.

The explosion occurred on Wednesday night in the village of Kawuri, in Borno state, the epicentre of a 14-year-old terrorist insurgency.

"We found 19 dead bodies and 27 wounded," said Ibrahim Liman, a member of an anti-terrorist militia that collaborates with the army.

Two other militiamen confirmed the death toll in Kawuri, about 50 kilometres from Maiduguri, the state capital.

The attack comes a few weeks after suicide bombings that killed 32 people in the Gwoza region of Borno state, targeting a wedding, a hospital and funerals.

No group has claimed responsibility for Wednesday’s blast or previous attacks in the Gwoza region, but the terrorist group Boko Haram and its rival Islamic State West Africa Group are both active in the area.

Bomb attacks in Nigeria’s cities have become rare since the army drove the extremists out of the territories they controlled at the start of the conflict in 2014, but they continue to carry out attacks and ambushes in rural areas.

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu made tackling insecurity a top priority when he took office in May 2023.

Nigeria’s military is also battling heavily armed groups in the northwest of the country.