Two heroic dogs have perished tragically after helping to foil a deadly Boko Haram suicide attack in Maiduguri.
File photo used only for illustrative purpose
According to Vanguard, two dogs on Friday foiled an attempt by two suicide bombers to detonate bombs at the Moloi General Hospital in Maiduguri.
The foiled attack is the latest in a string of deadly attacks on soft targets by the Boko Haram group in Nigeria’s northeast, the hotbed of the Islamic insurgency.
The Chairman of the Borno State Emergency Management Agency, Mr. Fatomi Ahmed, confirmed the development in an interview with newsmen after the attack. Ahmed said the agency had deployed a rescue team to evacuate debris at the scene of the foiled attack.
The Spokesman of the Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF), Malam Bello Danbatta, who also confirmed the incident, said that the dogs and the bombers died instantly in the attack but that no other life was lost.
An eye-witness, Mr. Rilwan Isah, said persistent barking by the two dogs prevented the suicide bombers from gaining entry into the hospital premises.
He explained that the insurgents, a male and female, were attacked by the dogs, forcing them to detonate the explosives strapped to their bodies. Isah said the dogs belonged to members of the CJTF and had been deployed to the area for rescue operations.
The eye-witness said further that the dogs attacked the suicide bombers when the animals sensed that the two persons were strangers. Isah said the explosion blew the suicide bombers to pieces and killed the dogs.
“We heard the male suicide bomber shouting in his dialect and the dogs barking and going after them.
“Only the suicide bombers and the dogs were killed in the attack,” he stressed. Insurgents have been packing bloody punches in Maiduguri and other northeast cities in recent weeks, although the military authorities had said that the group had been degraded.
Thousands of lives have been lost in several communities in northern Nigeria since the insurgency started more than eight years ago.