University of Maiduguri mosque attacked by 7-year-old suicide bomber – police
One of the suicide bombers who killed a professor and another victim at the University of Maiduguri on Monday morning should be no older than seven, the police has said.
The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) said 17 people were also injured in the blast which occurred around 5:15am. Police, however, said 15, not 17, persons were injured.
Here’s the police account of what happened.
“At about 5:45 a.m. a mobile police officer who is on duty sighted a suicide bomber who was trying to scale the fence at Gate Five of the university.
“Suspicious of his movement, the mobile police officer instantly gunned him down and his bomb exploded and killed him instantly.
“The second suicide bomber, a seven-year-old, detonated the second explosive at the senior staff quarters mosque in the university where a professor and four persons were killed and 15 persons sustained various degrees of injuries and were rushed to the hospital.”
The statement was issued by Borno State police commissioner Damian Chukwu.
NEMA’s Borno executive secretary Ahmed Satomi identified the professor killed in the blast as Aliyu Usman Mani. He was the Director of Veterinary Medicine, University of Maiduguri.
Mani was inside the mosque when the “seven-year-old boy” detonated his suicide vest.
The attack has been blamed on Boko Haram, a sect the Nigerian government said it had “totally” crushed.
The government also said it has captured Sambisa Forest from the terrorists.
The attack came on a day information minister Lai Mohammed, Bring Back our Girls (BBOG) campaigners and journalists are on a “guided tour” of Sambisa Forest in Borno State.
