Two female suicide bombers killed at least 44 people

Female suicide bombers kill at least 44 in Nigeria's northeast

 IN MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (Chat212 Fm) - Two female suicide bombers killed at least 44 people on Tuesday in Nigeria's northeastern city of Maiduguri, at the heart of a militant Islamist insurgency, medical officials said.

Four witnesses told Reuters near the scene a woman had entered the roadside trading area behind the city's main market before blowing herself up.

"While the people were trying to help the injured, the second bomb blasted," witness Sani Adamu told Chat212 Fm. "I saw lots of bodies."

A nurse at Maiduguri General Hospital said 42 bodies had been received from the twin blasts. In the Maiduguri University teaching hospital in a different part of town, a staff member said two of a dozen wounded brought there for treatment had so far died.

Nigerian authorities did not respond to requests for comment. There was no claim of responsibility, but suspicion is likely to fall on violent Islamist group Boko Haram, whose five-year-old campaign for an Islamic state has killed thousands.

The group has increasingly used female suicide bombers.

In June, there were four attacks by female bombers in the largely Muslim north, including one targeting a school in Kano, the region's biggest city. A woman blew herself up at a teacher training college in Nigeria's central Niger state on Nov. 12, killing at least one other person.

Boko Haram has stepped up assaults in the northeast of Nigeria, showing it remains the biggest security threat to Africa's biggest economy and top oil producer.