NEMA says 15 were killed and 41 injured

October 3, 2015 9:53 AM

Boko Haram has been trying to carve out an Islamist state in the country's northeast since 2009, killing thousands and displacing 2.1 million people.

At least 15 people were killed and 41 injured in a rare double bomb attack in a Nigeria's capital Abuja on Friday evening, the National Emergency Management Agency said on Saturday.

A bomb went off near a police station in the satellite town of Kuje, not far from the capital's airport, and the other in the suburb of Nyanya on Friday evening - the first attacks on the city in more than a year.

The blast in Nyanya went off in a crowded area not far from the site of two blasts in April and May last year that killed at least 90 people. Before then, there had not been an attack on the capital in two years.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

Attacks by the Boko Haram Islamist group have lately been concentrated in Nigeria's north-eastern‎ Borno state, the birthplace of the insurgency, and the northern parts of neighbouring Adamawa state.

Since losing most of the territory it took over earlier this year, it has reverted to hitting soft targets such as markets, bus stations and places of worship as well as hit-and-run attacks on villages, mainly in northeastern Borno state.