Female suicide bomber kills ten in Nigeria’s Damaturu

At least ten killed in attack on crowded market in northeastern city of Damaturu, capital of Yobe state.

Nigeria
Damaturu has been the site of previous attack by Boko Haram [File: AFP]

A female suicide bomber has killed at least ten people at Damaturu Central Motor Park, a bus station in the northeast Nigerian city.

“There has been an attack on the Damaturu Central Motor Park by a female suicide bomber,” Marcos Danladi, the police commissioner of Yobe State, said on Sunday.

Danladi said that 32 people had been injured.

Al Jazeera’s Ahmed Idris reporting from Abuja, the capital, said that while the area had come under attack numerous times in the past, this attack had targeted a large amount of people as Sunday was market day.

Witnesses said the assailant entered the station in a vehicle, got out and walked towards a small grocery store at the end of the terminal.

She then positioned herself amid the crowd outside the store and blew herself up, said one shopowner at the station, who requested anonymity.

Another shop owner in Damaturu, the capital of Yobe state, told the AFP news agency that an angry mob prevented emergency workers from evacuating the remains of the bomber.

“They gathered the pieces [body parts] and set them on fire,” he said.

While there was no immediate claim of responsibility but the armed group Boko Haram have been accused of similar attacks in the area.

Several dozen people suspected of having links to Boko Haram have been arrested in southern Niger since
the start of cross-border attacks by the armed group a week ago, a local governor said late on Saturday.

“In the region of Zinder, we have a few dozen people whom we arrested for checking. They are suspects,” Kalla Moutari told AFP, adding that they were citizens of Niger.

“The [Nigerian] military has been engaging Boko Haram. They claim to have captured hundreds of Boko Haram fighters from Niger,” Idris said.

Source: Al Jazeera, News Agencies