Jos is a
hotspot for violent religious confrontations, located where Nigeria's
majority Muslim north and mainly Christian south collide.
The city has been targeted in the past by bomb blasts claimed by Boko Haram extremists that have killed hundreds of people.
Dozens more injured: People receive treatment in hospital following the devastating Boko Haram attacks
Bomb attack: The attacks at Yantaya Mosque and Shagalinku restaurant in Jos, Nigeria, killed 44 people
On
Sunday, the extremists also returned to north-eastern villages attacked
three days earlier, killing nine people and burning down 32 churches
and about 300 homes, said Stephen Apagu, chairman of a vigilante
self-defence group in Borno State's Askira-Uba local government area. He
said the vigilantes killed three militants.
Scores
of people were killed when several female suicide bombers loyal to Boko
Haram blew themselves in the middle of a huge crowd in Zabarmari
village on Saturday night.
Local
resident Haladu Musa, who fled the attack, told how 'large numbers' of
fighters poured into the village, overpowering government forces
deployed to prevent the insurgents reaching Maiduguri.
Then,
as people began to flee, a number of female suicide bombers started
blowing themselves up in their midst, killing large numbers of people,
he said.
Scene of the bombing: The blasts
happened within minutes of each other at a shopping complex and near a
mosque in the religiously divided capital of Plateau state
Shocking death toll: The bombings took the death toll from raids, explosions and suicide attacks to 267 this month alone
Picking up the pieces: People gather
inside the Redeemed Christian Church of God, after a bomb blast in
Potiskum, Nigeria yesterday
The Zabarmari attack followed attacks across restive Borno state since Wednesday that have been blamed on the jihadists.
Last
week, militants gunned down worshippers at evening Ramadan prayers,
shot women in their homes and dragged men and boys from their beds to
kill them in the dead of night.
A young female suicide bomber also killed 12 worshippers when she blew herself up in a mosque.
Boko Haram took over a large swath of north-eastern Nigeria last year and stepped up cross-border raids.
A
multinational army from Nigeria and its neighbours forced the militants
out of towns, but bombings and village attacks have increased in recent
weeks, apparently in response to an Islamic State group order for more
mayhem during Ramadan.
Boko Haram became ISIS's West Africa franchise earlier this year.
Deliberately targeted: The second bomb hit Shagalinku, a restaurant visited by state governors and other elite politicians
Blackened wreckage: The shell of a car was pictured today at the site of one of the Boko Haram bombings
Carnage: People gather at the site of
suicide bomb attack at a church in Potiskum, Nigeria on Sunday as Boko
Haram returned to north-eastern villages attacked three days earlier
Blast site: Several female suicide
bombers loyal to the Boko Haram terror group blew themselves in the
middle of a huge crowd in norhtern Nigeria's Zabarmari village
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