KANO, Nigeria — Gunmen suspected of being members of the Boko Haram Islamist sect Monday shot dead three people at a market in Nigeria's violence-torn northern city of Maiduguri, state police chief said.
"I have received report of an attack this morning by suspected Boko Haram gunmen in Baga market where a tea seller, a drug store owner and a passer-by were shot dead by the attackers," Borno state police commissioner Simeon Midenda said.
"The fact that nothing was taken from the tea seller who was shot in the chest and the head and the drug store owner rules out robbery," Midenda said by telephone from Maiduguri, capital of the state.
The market is frequented by traders from neighbouring countries of Chad, Niger and Cameroon.
There have been no arrests in connection with the attack, he said.
The attack brings to eight the number of people killed in the city in the last two days by suspected Islamists after weeks of a lull in Boko Haram-instigated bomb and shooting attacks.
Five people were killed on Saturday, Nigeria's Independence Day, in two separate attacks blamed on the sect, a spokesman for a special military unit in Maiduguri told AFP.
In one of them, attackers used explosives and gunfire to target an army patrol near a wedding in the city, killing at least three civilians, the military said Sunday.
In the second incident, a butcher and his assistant were shot dead by gunmen in Maiduguri, Mohammed said.
Thousands have fled Maiduguri in recent months for fear of further violence. Dozens of similar bomb blasts have hit the city as well as assassinations blamed on Boko Haram.
While most of its attacks have occurred in Nigeria's northeast, Boko Haram also claimed responsibility for the August 26 bomb blast at UN headquarters in Abuja that killed at least 23 people.
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