Three suspected suicide bombers struck the northeastern Nigerian city of Maiduguri on Monday evening, killing at least 23 people and wounding 108 others in near-simultaneous attacks on two busy markets and the entrance of the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital. Police confirmed the toll Tuesday and said an investigation was underway to identify those responsible.

The first blast hit the hospital gate at approximately 7:30 p.m. local time. The second and third followed within minutes at the Monday Market and the nearby Post Office business hub, two commercial areas located roughly four kilometers from the hospital. The attacks came as large crowds had gathered in all three locations during iftar — the breaking of the day's Ramadan fast.

Borno State police spokesperson Nahum Kenneth Daso confirmed the attacks were carried out by "suspected suicide bombers" and said security forces had been deployed to all three scenes, which were cordoned off and searched to rule out additional threats. "Regrettably, a total of 23 persons lost their lives, while 108 others sustained varying degrees of injuries," Daso said in a statement.

No group claimed responsibility. Nigerian military officials attributed the attacks to "suspected Boko Haram terrorist suicide bombers" using improvised explosive devices. Crisis monitoring group ACLED described Monday's bombing as the deadliest suicide attack in Nigeria in seven years.

Three Locations, Coordinated Timing

The sequencing of the blasts — set minutes apart across different parts of the city — complicated the response from the outset. Caleb Jonah, who had come to check on a patient at the teaching hospital, described the scene at the first blast site. "I was coming to the hospital to check in on a patient when I saw two men struggling with the security men at the gate," he said. "Before I could process what was going on I heard the deafening blast and I passed out."

At the Monday Market and Post Office area, witnesses said the movement of people fleeing the initial explosion funneled crowds directly toward the subsequent attacker. Mala Mohammed, 31, said that as people ran toward the post office, "the person who had the explosive device ran into the crowd while people were still trying to escape." Alhaji Bukar Grema, who owns a shop near one of the blast sites and helped evacuate victims, said he heard "a heavy explosion and later realized it was a bomb."

Mohammed Hassan, a member of a volunteer force that assists Nigerian security in fighting armed groups, said he personally evacuated 10 bodies from the market area. He described hospitals as "in dire need of blood" and called it "one of the deadliest in Maiduguri in years." Bagoni Alkali, another witness who brought wounded people to the hospital, said over 200 injured people were in the emergency department at one point. "Many lost their lives at the scene immediately after the bomb exploded," Alkali said.

A City That Had Found Relative Calm

Maiduguri is the capital of Borno State and the birthplace of the Boko Haram insurgency, which launched in 2009 and has since killed tens of thousands of people and displaced more than two million across Nigeria's northeast. The city was the epicenter of the violence for years, regularly targeted by bombings and gun attacks through the mid-2010s.

But in recent years, intensified military operations had pushed armed groups toward remote border areas and the Sambisa forest — a known jihadist stronghold — leaving the city in a period of relative quiet. The last major attack before Monday dated to 2021, when Boko Haram mortar fire killed 10 people. A bombing at a mosque last December killed five, but the city had otherwise been spared the kind of coordinated urban assault seen Monday.

The attacks came less than 24 hours after Nigerian military forces repelled a separate overnight assault by suspected militants on a post in the Ajilari Cross area on the city's southwestern outskirts, near the airport. Some residents suggested the prior attack may have been intended as a diversion.

Borno State Governor Babagana Zulum condemned the bombings and said "the recent surge in attacks is not unconnected with intense military operations in the Sambisa forest," suggesting the violence was a retaliatory response to pressure on militant strongholds.

Security and Political Response

By Tuesday morning, heavy security had been deployed across the affected areas and along major roads throughout the city. Many public places remained closed. Nigerian President Bola Tinubu, who had departed for a two-day state visit to the United Kingdom, called the attacks "desperate acts of the evil-minded terrorist groups" and directed security chiefs to move to Maiduguri to "take charge of the situation" and "completely defeat" the militants. He said he had approved additional equipment and support for the military.

The attacks arrived during a broader spike in jihadist activity across northeastern Nigeria. In the week prior, the Nigerian army confirmed coordinated attacks on several military bases in the northeast that killed at least 14 people, including 10 soldiers. Armed groups had also been stripping military bases of weapons and ammunition in recent raids. The army said Monday it had foiled four separate attacks outside Maiduguri in the hours before the bombings.

The United States has recently deepened its military presence in Nigeria in response to the wider security deterioration. U.S. Africa Command deployed 200 troops to provide technical and training support to Nigerian forces. AFRICOM also conducted air strikes in December targeting Islamic State militants in Nigeria's northwestern Sokoto State. U.S. intelligence from aerial surveillance was credited with the destruction of four ISWAP gun trucks on March 11.

What Security Analysts Are Saying

Experts pushed back on the Nigerian government's characterization of the bombings as a sign of militant desperation, arguing the opposite conclusion was more defensible.

Ikemesit Effiong, a partner at SBM Intelligence, a Nigeria-based risk advisory firm, said the coordinated attacks showed the groups "oozing confidence in their ability to wreck terror in that part of the country." He added that he expected more. "We think this is the start of a spate of bombings, not just in Maiduguri but also less protected urban areas in the northeast."

Malik Samuel, a senior researcher at Good Governance Africa, said the ability to carry out three simultaneous bombings inside the city pointed to significant intelligence failures. "It speaks to the intelligence failure and it shows that both factions are still very, very capable," Samuel said. He also noted the symbolic weight of the target. "Maiduguri being attacked is like an insult for the security forces. For the groups, it is symbolic because it shows nowhere is out of their reach."

Vincent Foucher, a senior research fellow with the National Centre for Scientific Research in France who studies the insurgency, said military gains against the groups have consistently proven temporary. "The jihadists control substantial rural areas, the military hold towns which are entrenched," he said. "They can regenerate easily. There are so many different fires that are burning throughout Nigeria now. It is whack-a-mole."