Boko Haram suspected after suicide blast, prison break in Nigeria

More than 130 prisoners are on the run after dynamite was used to free them from the Koton Karfi prison in Kogi state, central Nigeria. “They blew up the thing with dynamite,” national police spokesman Emmanuel Ojukwu told AFP. The prison in Kogi is thought to hold many suspected Boko Haram fighters, but Ojukwu said the raid was not linked to the five-year Islamist uprising, blaming it instead on “criminal activity”. Boko Haram claimed a February 2012 attack on the same prison that freed more than 100 inmates. A former spokesman for the insurgent group known as Abul Qaqa, whom the has military claimed to have killed, said at the time that the raid was aimed at freeing several of its members.

There were 145 prisoners at the time of the attack. One died, eight have been recaptured and four surrendered voluntarily. The rest are at large.

Jacob Edi, a spokesman for the area governor’s office

Meanwhile, a suicide bomb at a market in the city of Potiskum in Nigeria’s northeast Yobe state has reportedly killed at least 23 people and injured 50 others. The blast occurred as Shia Muslims were marking Ashoura, a religious date in the Islamic calendar. The attacker joined a line of worshippers before setting off his device as they marched through the town, a territory at the heart of the Boko Haram insurgency, resident Yusuf Abdullahi said. “I heard a very heavy explosion as if it happened in my room. It took place just 200 metres from my house,” he said. Another person carrying an explosive that did not go off was also arrested, he added. Mohammed Gana, whose brother was killed in the attack, said he counted 23 bodies at the scene.

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