MAIDUGURI: Multiple explosions staged by suspected suicide bombers rocked the northeastern Nigerian city of Maiduguri, killing at least 23 people and wounding more than 100 others, police said Tuesday.
"Preliminary investigation reveals that the incidents were carried out by suspected suicide bombers," police spokesman Nahum Kenneth Daso said in a statement.
"Regrettably, a total of twenty three (23) persons lost their lives, while one hundred and eight (108) others sustained varying degrees of injuries," he added.
The blasts, which struck on Monday evening, came after an attack on a military post overnight Sunday to Monday, which authories blamed on suspected "jihadists."
Combined with the attack on the military position the evening prior and a mosque bombing in December, the assaults have wrecked a peaceful stretch in the city, which had become a relative oasis of calm as Nigeria's long-running insurgency was pushed to the rural hinterlands.
Fighters from Boko Haram and rival "jihadist" group Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) have recently stepped up attacks in northeastern Nigeria.
Their 16-year campaign to establish a caliphate in the country has killed more than 40,000 people and displaced around two million.
An AFP reporter at a city hospital on Monday evening saw dozens of wounded people seeking treatment from Monday's blasts, as well as multiple bodies covered by sheets on the sidewalk outside.
Police said in the early Tuesday morning statement that "normalcy has been fully restored in the affected areas" and that security forces have increased their "presence and surveillance across Maiduguri and its environs to prevent any further occurrences".