A suicide bomber killed six people at a church in northeast Nigeria on Sunday at the end of a week in which suspected Boko Haram insurgents killed more than 200 people. The spate of bloodletting prompted renewed international outrage. French president François Hollande said he was ready to hold a summit with regional leaders to co-ordinate the fight against Boko Haram.
The blast in Potiskum in Yobe state yesterday came after an attack on the capital of neighbouring Borno state on Friday, fatal raids in three towns during the week and suicide bombings on a highway.
President Muhammadu Buhari said the murder of up to 150 Kukawa residents near Lake Chad on Wednesday by Boko Haram was a "heinous atrocity". Several people who attended burials there, including a senior government official, said 147 bodies, including 22 children, had been interred.
Also last week in Borno, about 50 people were shot dead in nearby Monguno, 12 men were killed in a raid on Miringa and two suicide bombers killed 10 by a highway.
Mr Buhari vowed to crush Boko Haram when he was sworn in on May 29th, but the insurgents have stepped up attacks, despite losing chunks of territory this year to soldiers from Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad and Niger. Mr Buhari’s spokesman Femi Adesina said on Saturday that a multinational capability in place, with the power to “devastate and decapitate” the insurgency, would soon be set in motion.
Mr Adesina said Mr Buhari was poised to defeat the insurgency but the government would talk if Boko Haram came to the table. – (Reuters)