Women in north Nigeria's largest city Kano are abandoning their traditional religious dress after a spate of suicide bombings by young girls with explosives under their hijab.

Military wives in the restive Nigerian city of Maiduguri have taken to the streets this week, burning tires to prevent their husbands being sent to fight Boko Haram.

About 300 women and 500 children have for two days gathered at the gates of a military base in the Borno state capital, claiming that their spouses were ill-equipped to take on the Islamist militants.

Hundreds of people who escaped a Boko Haram attack on their town in Nigeria's restive north and fled to a nearby mountain said Saturday they were without any food.

Nigeria's president on Friday declared a national emergency over the deadly Ebola virus that has claimed two lives in Africa's most populous country.

"President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan Friday in Abuja declared the control and containment of the Ebola virus in Nigeria, a national emergency," his office said in a statement.

The Nigerian Islamist movement Boko Haram has recruited and trained hundreds of young Cameroonians to carry out attacks in their own country, according to the police and civilians. 

oko Haram gunmen attacked Nigeria's restive northeastern town of Gwoza on Wednesday leaving dozens dead, residents said, in the latest violence blamed on the Islamists.

U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama on Wednesday called on her fellow presidential spouses from across Africa to "fight for our girls," saying no girl should fear getting an education.

Obama alluded indirectly to the plight of schoolgirls kidnapped by Islamist rebels in Nigeria in a panel discussion with former first lady Laura Bush on the closing day of a U.S. summit with African leaders.

Attacks by Boko Haram Islamists in Nigeria's crisis-hit northeast have forced nearly 650,000 people from their homes, the United Nations humanitarian office (OCHA) said Tuesday, an increase of nearly 200,000 since May.

The U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR) for its part reported that about 1,000 people trying to escape the fighting had fled to an uninhabited island on Lake Chad across Nigeria's northeastern border.

Global rights watchdog Amnesty International accused Nigeria's military and its supporting civilian militia on Tuesday of "extensive human rights violations" in their fight against Boko Haram in the country's northeast.

Amnesty said gruesome video footage, images and witness testimonies gathered during a recent research mission to Borno State provided "fresh evidence of extrajudicial executions and serious human rights violations" carried out in the region as Nigerian troops battle the extremist group.

The World Health Organization said Monday the death toll from the Ebola epidemic in west Africa has now reached 887 after 61 more fatalities recorded at the end of last week.

Giving an update on the deadly virus -- the worst Ebola outbreak ever -- the U.N. health agency said the 61 deaths were reported between last Thursday and Friday in Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone.