Maiduguri, Nigeria — At least 23 people were killed and more than 100 wounded in suspected suicide bombings Monday night that targeted Maiduguri city in northeastern Nigeria, police said Tuesday. It was one of the deadliest attacks in the conflict-battered city in recent history.
Residents and emergency services earlier told The Associated Press that three explosions were reported in crowded places in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state, including in a major market and at the entrance of the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital.
“Regrettably, a total of 23 persons lost their lives, while 108 others sustained varying degrees of injuries,” Borno police spokesperson Nahum Kenneth Daso said in a statement that blamed the attacks on suspected suicide bombers.
People carry an injured man past bodies covered with sheets at a hospital in Maiduguri, Nigeria on March 16, 2026 following multiple explosions. AFP via Getty Images
No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks, but suspicion quickly fell on the Boko Haram jihadi group, which in 2009 launched an insurgency in northeastern Nigeria to enforce their radical interpretation of Shariah.
Boko Haram has since become stronger, with thousands of fighters and different factions, including the ISIS-allied faction in West Africa.
Maiduguri city had been at the heart of the deadly violence but has in recent years experienced relative peace even as the countryside is often battered by extremists.
Residents recounted the chaos that followed the explosions.
“This attack’s been one of the deadliest in Maiduguri in years,” said Mohammed Hassan, a member of a volunteer group assisting security forces in fighting extremists. “We’re in dire need of blood,” he said of the situation hours after the attack.
The extremists have intensified their attacks against Nigerian military bases, killing several senior officers and soldiers and stripping the bases of stocks of weaponry and ammunition.
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