Hawzah News Agency (Kolo, Nigeria) - Militia leader Babakura Kolo said on Sunday that the bombings in the town of Damboa in Borno state a day earlier targeted people returning from celebrations of the holy Muslim occasion of Eid al-Fitr.

All indications, Kolo said, suggested that the Boko Haram Takfiri terrorist group was involved. Kolo spoke from Borno’s capital, Maiduguri, located some 88 kilometers from Damboa.

The number of casualties went up after militants fired rockets at people gathering at the site of the bombings.

Kolo said the first attack was carried out in Damboa’s Shuwari neighborhood and the second one targeted people in Abachari around 10:45 p.m. (2145 GMT).

Other officials confirmed that at least 31 people had been killed in the twin blasts, saying, however, that the toll may increase due to the severity of the incidents.

A local government official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said “most of the casualties were from the rocket projectiles fired from outside the town.”

“The latest death toll is now 31 but it may increase because many among the injured may not survive.”

The Nigerian government has insisted on several occasions that Boko Haram has technically been rooted out from its bastions in northern Nigeria. However, attacks have continued unabated in crowded places, mostly by girls and women recruits. The attacks have targeted mosques, markets and camps housing displaced people.

Boko Haram’s nine-year insurgency has left thousands of people killed and hundreds of thousands displaced in Nigeria’s devastated northeast.

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