By Olarewaju Kola

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (AA): At least 14 people were killed, and 15 others injured on Saturday when two suicide bombers forced their way into a refugee camp in northeastern Nigeria, and blew up themselves, authorities said.

The bombers infiltrated a camp for Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) at Borno town of Dikwa, 35 miles east of capital Maiduguri, and blew up themselves before they could be stopped by security personnel, according to Col. Onyema Nwachukwuthe, spokesman of the counter-insurgency military operation in the country’s troubled northeastern states.

He blamed Boko Haram which has claimed responsibility for most of the violence in the northeast since 2009, adding the insurgents “now employ a new tactic of bombing IDPs or refugee camps and taking hostages for ransom”.
Nwachukwu put the death toll at five but the State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) said 14 people were killed and at least 15 injured.

SEMA Chairman Ahmed Satomi told journalists in Maiduguri that 14 corpses had been evacuated from the scene.

The suicide attack occurred within a week of another attack by Boko Haram on oil workers and university staff who were returning from the site of oil prospecting around the Lake Chad area.

Nearly 30 people including varsity staff, workers from the national oil corporation, soldiers and local security personnel were believed to have been killed in the attack.

[Map of Nigerian map showing Maiduguri by Kemal Delikmen/AA]