(Reuters) — Two bomb attacks by suspected Boko Haram militants killed more than 30 people at a market in Gombe, in northeast Nigeria, on Thursday, a Red Cross official said.
Nobody has claimed responsibility for the blasts, which went off around 5.30pm (1630 GMT), but they bear the hallmarks of attacks by Boko Haram. The militant Islamists have killed thousands in a six-year insurgency in the country’s northeast.
“We were in the market and suddenly we saw an aircraft flying around, then it flew away, in less than five minutes we heard a loud blast. I saw people blown up bursting like tyres. Most people thought it was tyres exploding, then a few seconds later we saw people on the ground burning and people started running away. There was another blast which killed more people. We then took the courage to start evacuating them to hospital,” said eyewitness Awalu Yakubu.
“There were body parts everywhere when we helped them. Another man who was injured in his shop was put in a bag and brought to the road and into a vehicle. They were then driven away,” another eyewitness, Haruna AbuBakar, added.
A red cross official said more than 30 bodies were retrieved from the scene and an official from the National Emergency Management Agency also confirmed that the attacks had taken place and many people were hurt.
President Muhammadu Buhari has made crushing the insurgents his top priority, but hundreds have been killed in bombings and shootings since he was inaugurated on May 29.