At least 77 people died in attacks by suspected Islamic extremists who struck two northeast Nigerian state capitals, health workers said on Tuesday. The deaths from Monday's attacks bring the toll to at least 247 people reported killed in a week of increasing violence from an Islamic uprising in the northeast of Africa's biggest oil producer.
Double suicide bombings at a bustling market in Maiduguri, capital of Borno state, killed at least 16 people, according to workers at two hospitals who spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to reporters. The bodies included those of the two young women who set off the explosions. Two other young women blew themselves up at the same market last week, killing at least 70 people. In Damaturu, the Yobe state capital, the corpses of 33 police officers, six soldiers and 20 members of the Boko
Haram extremist group were brought to the hospital, according to a morgue worker.