Five female suicide bombers were intercepted on Friday morning in Maiduguri by members of the youth vigilante group, popularly called Civilian JTF in Borno State, North-East Nigeria.
Speaking to our correspondent on the incident, the spokesman of the youth vigilante group, Barrister Jubrin Gunda said the five suicide bombers were intercepted at about 5:20 am trying to gain entry into Maiduguri.
He said members of the youth vigilante group had prior intelligence that there would be suicide bomb attacks on Maiduguri and as such they had beefed up security around the troubled town.
He said the suicide bombers were sighted at the outskirts of the town around Polo and Giwa barrack areas and were shot dead by the youth vigilantes.
Gunda also revealed that they did not come in at once but different times and since they did not stop to be searched by the vigilante, they had to be shot.
He lamented that three of the vigilantes suffered serious injuries during the attack and had to be taken to the hospital.
He said: “Three of our boys had injuries from the attacks and are presently on admission at the hospital, we were happy that five female suicide bombers that wanted to sneak into the town to cause havoc were killed.”
Some of the residents who spoke to our correspondents said they heard heavy blasts in the early hour of Friday and thought it was the military that was test running their ammunition.
A resident, Abba Yunus said: “I heard deafening noise just after the early morning prayer, some minutes after 5am but thought it was the military testing their equipment as it was the normal practice.”
Gunda however said the heavy sound was the result of the blast that greeted the shooting of the suicide bombers.
He noted that when the suicide bombers were shot the bombs on the females detonated and that was what resulted in the injuries of the three youth vigilantes.
