Dozens of people are reported to have died in Nigeria in three separate attacks in the key north-eastern city of Maiduguri.

Two of the explosions happened at markets, another was at a busy bus station, witnesses said.

Suicide bombers were behind both market attacks, they said.

Maiduguri was once the base of the Islamist Boko Haram group that has been conducting a campaign of violence to push for Islamic rule in Nigeria.

After being pushed out of the city last year, the Islamist fighters retreated to the nearby Sambisa Forest from where they launched attacks on villages and towns in the north-east, taking over swathes of territory.

Boko Haram has not yet commented on the latest attacks, but it has used suicide bombers before.

'DETONATED AT SECURITY GATE'

According to reports, the first attack occurred at the city's Baga fish market.

The explosion was caused by a female suicide bomber in a rickshaw, killing 10 people, eyewitnesses said.

Later the city's Monday Market came under an attack. A trader there told the BBC that two other female bombers seemed to have targeted the market.

One had a bomb strapped to her body that detonated as she was being scanned at the gate leading into the market, he said.

Another woman exploded the bomb she was carrying in a bag a few feet away, he added.

It was difficult to know how many people had died as body parts littered the area.

The head of the Borno state Fisherman's Union, who was at the fish market and later visited the local hospital, said more than 40 people had died.

The third blast was at a busy bus station where a witness told the BBC that 12 people could be seen lying on the ground.

But he said he did not know if they were dead or injured or whether the blast had been denoted by a suicide bomber or planted in a vehicle.

Last week, Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan said the tide has "definitely turned" against militant Islamists as Nigerian troops and their regional allies recapture territory.

Nigeria's presidential and parliamentary elections have been postponed by six week to 28 March to give troops more time to beat back Boko Haram.

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