AT LEAST 23 people were killed and more than 100 wounded in suspected suicide bombings that targeted Maiduguri city in north-east Nigeria, police said today. 

It was one of the deadliest attacks in the conflict-battered city in recent history.

Residents and emergency services earlier told reporters that three explosions were reported in crowded places in the capital of Borno state, including in a major market and at the entrance of the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital.

“Regrettably, a total of 23 persons lost their lives, while 108 others sustained varying degrees of injuries,” Borno police spokesperson Nahum Kenneth Daso said in a statement that blamed the attacks on suspected suicide bombers.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks, but suspicion quickly fell on the Boko Haram jihadist group, which in 2009 launched an insurgency in north-east Nigeria to enforce their radical interpretation of Shariah.

Boko Haram has since become stronger, with thousands of fighters and different factions, including the Islamic State West Africa Province, which is backed by the Islamic State group.

Maiduguri city has been at the heart of the deadly violence but has in recent years experienced relative peace even as the countryside is often battered by extremists.