{Two girls said to be aged seven or eight have been used to bomb a market in north-east Nigeria, killing at least one other person and wounding 18.}<\/p>\n
Police in the town of Maiduguri, Borno state, say the attack happened when the market was crowded with shoppers.<\/p>\n
The girls detonated their explosives minutes apart, witnesses said. Both were killed.<\/p>\n
No group has said it was behind the bombings but Boko Haram militants have carried out similar attacks.<\/p>\n
In the past few months, the Nigerian army has made gains against the group but it still carries out regular bombings.<\/p>\n
A member of a militia in Maiduguri, Abdulkarim Jabo, told media the girls were aged about seven or eight and had arrived at the market in a rickshaw.<\/p>\n
“They got out of a rickshaw and walked right in front of me without showing the slightest sign of emotion,” he said.<\/p>\n
“I tried to speak with one of them, in Hausa and in English, but [they] didn’t answer. I thought they were looking for their mother.”<\/p>\n
He said the first girl had headed towards a market stall and then detonated her belt of explosives.<\/p>\n
Militants have carried out a string of deadly attacks in north-east Nigeria in recent weeks.<\/p>\n
On Friday, a double suicide attack carried out by female bombers killed at least 45 people and wounded 33 at a marketplace in the town of Madagali.<\/p>\n
In October, female suicide bombers also killed 17 people at a camp for displaced people in Maiduguri.<\/p>\n
{{Boko Haram}}<\/p>\n
Founded in 2002, initially focused on opposing Western-style education – Boko Haram means “Western education is forbidden” in the Hausa language<\/p>\n
Launched military operations in 2009<\/p>\n
Has killed thousands, mostly in north-eastern Nigeria, and abducted hundreds, including at least 200 schoolgirls<\/p>\n
Joined so-called Islamic State, now calls itself IS’s “West African province”<\/p>\n
Seized large area in north-east, where it declared caliphate<\/p>\n
Regional force has retaken most territory since last year<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{Two girls said to be aged seven or eight have been used to bomb a market in north-east Nigeria, killing at least one other person and wounding 18.} Police in the town of Maiduguri, Borno state, say the attack happened when the market was crowded with shoppers. The girls detonated their explosives minutes apart, witnesses […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[100],"byline":[249],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-31007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics-48","tag-africa","byline-bbc"],"bylines":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"contributors":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31007","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31007"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31007\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31007"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=31007"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=31007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}