Suicide Bombing of Leprosy Hospital in Nigeria

CBS:

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria – An apparent terrorist attempted to attack a leprosy hospital with a suicide vest in the restive northern region of Nigeria, according to a report.

Witnesses told Agence France Presse the bomber was stymied at the security checkpoint out front manned by vigilantes who have taken up arms in the fight against the ISIS-affiliated terrorist group Boko Haram.

The bomber apparently detonated his vest in front of the hospital, killing 5 and wounding 10, AFP reports.

Witnesses claimed he was one of three men dropped off near the hospital. The other two are believed to have fled in the confusion following the blast.

While there has been no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, the hospital sits in Maiduguri, which has been the epicenter of the fight against Boko Haram. The group’s six-year-old uprising, which began in northeastern Nigeria, is blamed for the deaths of 13,000 people and the displacement of more than 1.5 million. Their insurgency has also spread to nearly all of Nigeria’s neighbors.

Recently, officials have begun to fear that Boko Haram is using some of its thousands of kidnap victims as unwilling weapons.

A teenage girl strapped with explosives ran away from a crowded mosque last week, killing only herself.

The girl took off after her companion blew up in an explosion that killed 30 people on Monday in Maiduguri, the biggest city in northeast Nigeria, witnesses and a mortuary worker said.

“In the confusion of the blast, the other girl just ran away and only exploded when she was far from the crowd,” said fishmonger Idi Idrisa…