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63 killed in Nigeria attacks

November 06, 2011 12:40 am | Updated November 17, 2021 01:20 am IST - Kano (Nigeria):

Bomb and gun attacks targeting police stations and churches in the northeastern Nigerian city of Damaturu left 63 people dead, said a Red Cross official on Saturday.

One of the police buildings was hit by a suicide bomber, Suleimon Lawal, police chief for Yobe state, whose capital is Damaturu, told AFP.

A local government official said hundreds were also injured when the attackers bombed a city police headquarters, three other police stations and six churches in Damaturu late Friday, after similar raids in another city blamed on an Islamist sect.

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A lawyer who visited Damaturu's government hospital Saturday looking for a missing friend said he counted 60 bodies in the morgue, “all brought in yesterday from the attacks.”

The lawyer, who asked not to be named, told AFP he found the friend, a policeman, among the corpses.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks, but residents of Damaturu blame the Islamist sect Boko Haram, based in nearby Maiduguri, where a suicide blast earlier Friday damaged a military headquarters.

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An official told AFP that the hospital was full to the brim with wounded.

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