MAIDUGURI, Nigeria—Girl suicide bombers killed 12 people over the weekend in Nigeria and Cameroon, officials said Monday of the attackers who were stopped for routine searches. All five bombers also died, but they could have killed many more people.
Police who blamed Boko Haram said one girl detonated explosives strapped to her body Sunday evening at a military checkpoint guarding an entry to Nigeria’s northeastern city of Maiduguri.
Police commissioner Aderemi Opadokun said she killed herself and seven other passengers who got off a bus to be searched. A dozen people were injured.
It was the first bomb in nearly a month in Maiduguri, the birthplace of Nigeria’s homegrown Islamic extremists whose 6-year-old insurgency has killed about 20,000 people and driven 2.3 million people from their homes.
