At least five people are dead following a suicide bombing during a Christian church service in north east Nigeria.

 

The female suicide bombing is the latest in a string of attacks blamed on the Islamic extremist group Boko Haram that have killed around 200 over the last week.

Nearly 100 men and boys praying in a mosque were gunned down on Wednesday.

Police rushed to the Redeemed Christian Church of God in Potiskum, the largest city in north-eastern Yobe state. One witness said the blast came from a woman who was in the congregation.

Reports say there were at least five bodies from the blast in the morgue of the local hospital, where a wounded woman was being treated.

Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari condemned the latest attacks on Friday as barbaric and said they underline the need for an expanded multinational army to crush the extremists.

Boko Haram took control of a large swath of north east Nigeria last year and declared an Islamic caliphate. As it stepped up cross-border attacks, Nigeria and its neighbours formed a multinational army that this year drove them out of towns and villages.

But bombings and village attacks are increasing as Boko Haram apparently responds to an Islamic State group directive to increase attacks in the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

At least 13,000 people have died in the six-year-old Islamic uprising that also has driven 1.5 million people from their homes, some across borders.