63 killed in attacks in northern Nigeria: Red Cross official

Bomb and gun attacks targeting police stations and churches in the northeastern Nigerian city of Damaturu left 63 people dead, a Red Cross official said today.

One of the police buildings was hit by a suicide bomber, Suleimon Lawal, police chief for Yobe state, whose capital is Damaturu, told AFP.

A local government official said hundreds were also injured when the attackers bombed a city police headquarters, three other police stations and six churches in Damaturu late Friday, after similar raids in another city blamed on an Islamist sect.

"Sixty-three people (are) confirmed dead," the Red Cross official who asked not to be named said.

A lawyer who visited Damaturu's government hospital Saturday looking for a missing friend said he counted 60 bodies in the morgue, "all brought in yesterday from the attacks."

 The lawyer, who asked not to be named, told AFP he found the friend, a policeman, among the corpses.

He said anxious relatives were flocking to the hospital in search of loved ones.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks, but residents of Damaturu blame the Islamist sect Boko Haram, based in nearby Maiduguri, where a suicide blast earlier Friday damaged a military headquarters.

 A senior local government official in the city, who did not want to be identified because he did not have permission to speak to the media, told AFP that the hospital was full to the brim with wounded.