French President Francois Hollande said the Boko Haram threat was getting stronger and that he was ready to hold a summit, following one in Paris in May 2014, to gather the leaders of countries fighting the insurgents.
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A survivor, Ado Aliyu, told CNN that about five gunmen entered a crowd of people and started shooting, setting off a stampede before the first explosion struck.
A hospital in Potiskum said it had received the bodies.
According to Amnesty global, at least 17,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed since 2009, when Boko Haram launched its violent uprising to try to impose militant Islamist rule.
The city sits between the predominantly Christian and animist southern half of Nigeria and the north, where the majority of the country’s Muslims live.
There was no immediate official word on the Sunday night blasts.
Police Sunday rushed to the Redeemed Christian Church of God in Potiskum, the largest city in northeastern Yobe state. Earlier this year, Boko Haram became an affiliate of the Islamic State group which has proclaimed a caliphate in parts of Iraq and Syria under its control.
In addition to schools and police and government buildings, Boko Haram has been known to target churches, as evidenced by a rash of church attacks in June 2013 that left more than 50 people dead and a November 2011 string of attacks that included assaults on 11 churches.
Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari on Friday condemned the latest attacks as barbaric and said they underline the need for an expanded multinational army to crush the extremists.
Elected earlier this year, Buhari vowed to focus on the fight against the terrorist group, which has pledged allegiance to ISIS.
Boko Haram took over a large swath of northeastern Nigeria past year and stepped up cross-border raids.
“The restaurant was destroyed, and we saw many people covered in blood”, he said.
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Elsewhere in the northeast, extremists killed nine people and burned down 32 churches and about 300 homes in several villages, said Stephen Apagu, chairman of a self-defense group in Borno state’s Askira-Uba local government area. CNN’s Jethro Mullen in Hong Kong wrote this report.
