AUGUST 26 (Reuters) — A teenage suicide bomber detonated an explosive device strapped to her body in the northeastern Nigerian city of Damaturu early on Tuesday (August 25), killing five people and wounding about 30, police said.
No one claimed responsibility for the blast but Islamist militant group Boko Haram has been blamed for a series of similar attacks in the region in recent weeks.
Officials at the state emergency management agency said the suicide bomber tried to enter the motor park, or bus station, and was accosted by civilian vigilantes.
She then pulled away and set off the bomb.
Another suicide attacker struck in Damaturu, already rocked by a separate deadly bombing just 10 minutes earlier, managing only to kill himself.
According to police spokesperson Toyin Gbadegesin a boy aged around 12-14 years old detonated an explosive device strapped to his waist after his cover was blown by fellow passengers on a rickshaw in the outskirts of the city.
“The suicide bomber attacked today at a popular motor park called Bayantasha, which involved a girl of about 14 years old who was clammed with explosive devices. The girl upon approaching the entrance of the motor park was stopped for checking but she refused to be checked because she said she was not going to the market, that she was not entering the park. But she was only disguising, upon sighting the commercial motor car that was loaded with passengers she rushed in and thereby detonating the device, killing herself and five others. And there was another suicide bomb incident involving the suicide bomber himself alone, a boy of about 12 years who actually discovered that the game was up, ran into the bush and in the process the bomb went off and the boy died instantly,” Gbadegesin said.
Boko Haram has stepped up attacks in northeast Nigeria since President Muhammadu Buhari closely fought elections promising to fight corruption, unemployment and the Boko Haram insurgency.
The Islamists have also carried out deadly ambushes across Nigeria’s frontier and in recent weeks suicide bombers, many of them women, have staged several attacks in Nigeria, Cameroon and Chad.
“The issue is that the general public will have to be aware that they entice most of these innocent children with money that is not even much. So people should look after their wards and know who they interact with. It is indeed a very unfortunate situation, and people should be on the look out,” said Bahir Idris, a coordinator at the state emergency management agency.
Boko Haram has been waging an insurgency since 2009 to carve out an islamic caliphate in Nigeria’s northeast adhering to strict sharia law.
Boko Haram took over large swathes of territory last year but have since been repelled from most parts by Nigerian forces with the help of Chad, Niger and Cameroon.
