Boko Haram bombs bar, kills 60 in Adamawa

Members of the Boko Haram Islamic sect on Sunday bombed a bar and a brothel located near a major military base in Mubi, Adamawa State and killed over 60 people. Sources told saharareporters that explosion rocked the popularly bar located at Kaban, a few kilometres to the headquarters of the Special Operations Battalion (SOB) of the Nigerian army in Mubi. It was gathered that the SOB was at the centre of the Nigerian government’s counter-offensive against Boko Haram’s increasingly daring attacks on military and civilian targets. Saharareporters reported that the blast occurred around 6pm at the brothel where both military and civilians used to unwind. The agency reported that one of its sources said none of the casualties was a soldier, but another source told saharareporters that it was too early to determine whether soldiers were among the casualties or not. Saharareporters added that soldiers based in Mubi “frequently join civilians to eat, drink and dance at the watering hole. It, however, added that military commanders had warned soldiers not to stay at the joint past 4 p.m. In recent weeks, Boko Haram has carried out deadly attacks in the northeast Nigerian states of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe despite the Federal Government’s declaration of a state of emergency in the three states. Meanwhile, security forces in Cameroon have killed about 40 Boko Haram militants in clashes in the country’s far north on Sunday. Cameroon’s state radio said this on Sunday shortly after the release of two Italian priests and a Canadian nun suspected to have been held by the Islamist group. A government source in Yaounde was quoted by Reuters as having confirmed the clashes which took place west of the town of Kousseri, in the region bordering Nigeria and Chad. Cameroon, which had been criticised by Nigeria for not doing enough to fight the Boko Haram insurgents, deployed some 1,000 troops in the far North last week. The two Italian priests and a Canadian nun kidnapped in northern Cameroon nearly two months ago by suspected Boko Haram gunmen were released on Sunday, smiling and apparently in good health as they arrived in Yaounde, the capital. Reuters reported that Giampaolo Marta and Gianantonio Allegri, missionaries from the diocese of Vicenza in northeast Italy, and Canadian Gilberte Bissiere were seized on the night of April 4 from the parish of Maroua, close to the border with Nigeria. There has been no claim of responsibility for their kidnapping but Cameroonian officials have pointed the finger at the Nigerian Islamist group Boko Haram, which has become active in a region that it had for some time used as a logistical base. Reuters added that state television in Cameroon showed images of the priests and the nun arriving at Yaounde airport on Sunday in the company of heavily armed Cameroonian special forces.