Johannesburg – Up to 30 people were killed, and another 83 people injured, after three suicide bombers blew themselves up in north-eastern Nigeria in an attack bearing the hallmarks of Boko Haram.
A female suicide bomber blew herself up on Tuesday killing at least 27 people while two other suicide bombers detonated their devices at the gates to a nearby refugee camp, critically wounding dozens, two Nigerian officials told Al Jazeera.
The regional Emergency Agency said 45 people were "critically injured" and confirmed the death toll could be as high as 30.
The explosions took place near the city of Maiduguri, the epicentre of a continuing conflict between government forces and the Islamist group Boko Haram.
The Nigerian army has been involved in a long-running campaign against the extremists and last year successfully took back large swathes of territory from the group.
However, Boko Haram has been fighting back since June, weakening the army’s control and killing at least 143 people prior to Tuesday’s attacks.
During the last eight years, Boko Haram has attempted to create an Islamic state in northeast Nigeria. In April 2014 the organisation angered the international community when it kidnapped more than 200 Chibok schoolgirls.
Eighty of the kidnapped schoolgirls remain missing after the rest were freed in May during a prisoner exchange.
One of the Boko Haram’s better known factions, led by Abubaker Shekay is based in the Sambisa forest and is infamous for using women and children as suicide bombers because they are harder to detect.
They are subsequently sent to target mosques and markets.
Abu Musaab Al Barnawi leads a rival faction, based in the Lake Chad region, and has strong ties to the Islamic State. This faction has carried out highly sophisticated and deadly attacks too.
An oil prospecting team was captured last month by Al Barnawi’s group. More than 50 people were killed, including members of a rescue team backed by vigilantes, as they attempted to free the hostages.
The Boko Haram rebellion has killed 20 000 people and forced some 2.7 million to flee their homes in the last eight years.
Religious conflict in Nigeria goes as far back as 1953. In the 1980s the military ruler of Nigeria, General Ibrahim Babangida, enrolled Nigeria in the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, aggravating religious tensions in the country, particularly among the Christian community.
Since the return of democracy to Nigeria in 1999 Sharia law has been instituted as a main body of civil and criminal law in nine Muslim-majority and in some parts of three Muslim-plurality states.
Then Zamfara state governor, Ahmad Rufai Sani, began the push for the institution of Sharia at the level of government.