Four dead after day of violence Today in Maiduguri

 Nigeria's restive city of Maiduguri was on Sunday rocked by a roadside blast and two separate gun attacks that killed at least four people including a local chief, residents and the military said.

The northeastern city is a stronghold of Islamist group Boko Haram but it was not immediately clear who was behind the latest violence.

A resident and a doctor at a local hospital reported that gunmen shot dead a married couple and their child as the family left church in Maiduguri's Gwange area.

"We received three bodies of a couple and their child this morning from Gwange with several bullet wounds," said the doctor at the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital, who requested anonymity.

"They were brought from Gwange where they were shot by some gunmen as they were leaving a church," he added.

A resident of the Gwange area, Bukar Kolo, told AFP the gunmen fled after the attack outside the Church of Christ in Nigeria building.

Boko Haram have repeatedly attacked Christians attending Sunday worship across northern Nigeria, but there was no indication as to why this family may have been specifically targetted.

Separately, the traditional chief in Gwange, Mala Kaka, who has close ties to the area's top Islamic leader, was gunned down in his home, according to his guards and residents.

"The attackers burst into his sitting room where he was chatting with his friend who visited him and shot them both," a member of his guard said.

"The chief died on the spot while his friend is now in hospital with gunshot wounds."

Resident Abdullahi Faltaye offered a similar account, saying the chief has already been buried. - Google News