News
Female Bomber Kills 10 In Yobe …Kano Police Repel Gunmen, Kill Two
A female suicide bomber killed ten people yesterday at a bus station in the Damaturu, Yobe state, the latest in a spate of similar attacks blamed on Boko Haram.
Confirming the incident, Yobe State Police Commissioner, Marcos Danladi, said, “there has been an attack on the Damaturu Central Motor Park by a female suicide bomber. So far, seven people have been confirmed dead and 32 others injured”.
Witnesses said the assailant entered the motor park 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 shop owner at the terminal, who requested anonymity.
The shop owner said 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 for the attack, suspicion immediately fell on Boko Haram.
The Islamists militants have been blamed for increasingly using women and girls as human bombs across northern Nigeria.
Bus parks have been among the group’s preferred targets through its six-year uprising aimed at creating a hardline Islamic state in the north.
Meanwhile, the Police in Kano State yesterday confirmed the killing of two gunmen suspected to be Boko Haram members in Kibiya Local Government Area of the state.
The command’s Public Relations Officer, ASP Magaji Majiya, who confirmed the incident in an interview in Kano, said the incident happened on Saturday around 5.30 pm, when gunmen, numbering about six, stormed the police station on two motorcycles but the police repelled the attack.
He said one of the gunmen was killed during an exchange of fire while the other was lynched by the community while trying to escape.
According to him, two of the gunmen were also arrested and were now assisting the police in their investigation.
“No policeman was killed or injured during the incident,” he said.
Majiya said the gunmen had also abandoned one of their motorcycles before fleeing the area.
He said security had since been beefed up in the area, adding that neighbouring states had been alerted in order to arrest the fleeing hoodlums.