At least 47 people were killed and dozens
wounded in a bomb blast Tuesday in a part
of northeast Nigeria frequently targeted by
Boko Haram Islamists, a medical source
and witnesses said.
The explosion ripped through
the weekly
market in the village of Sabon Gari, around
135 kilometres (85 miles) south of Borno
state capital Maiduguri, during peak trading
around 1:15 pm (1230 GMT), the sources
said.
"We have received at least 47 dead bodies
and at least 50 with injuries from the
Sabon Gari market, where there was a a nurse at Biu General
Hospital, around 50 kilometres (30 miles)
away, told AFP.
He said the injuries from the blast are
mostly "severe", meaning the death toll
could continue to rise.
"The explosion happened inside the market
at the mobile phone section, near the
livestock section of the market," said
Yuram Bura, a member of a local vigilante
group fighting Boko Haram alongside the
army.
"It was concealed in a knapsack used for
spraying herbicides. It was smuggled into
the market and apparently abandoned."
Witnesses said the blast bore the hallmarks
of Boko Haram, which has previously
targeted crowded bus stations, markets,
mosques and churches during its bloody
six-year insurgency.
"Following the explosion everybody fled
the market because of fear of more
explosions. However, vigilantes and
volunteers went to the scene and were
able to evacuate the victims," Samaila Biu,
a local trader, told AFP.
"Soldiers were also deployed... The market
has been closed."
Increased attacks -
The attack came two days after jihadists
shot dead four people and abducted five
others in an ambush on a highway in the
same area on Sunday, according to local
vigilantes.
Gunmen suspected to be from Boko Haram
also killed eight people at the end of July in
a raid on a village near Biu, the biggest
town in southern Borno, the state which
has borne the brunt of the insurgency.
Boko Haram has killed more than 15,000
people since 2009 and has increasingly
spread across the country's borders, with
Chad and Cameroon suffering deadly
suicide bombings in recent months.
Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon and Niger
launched a joint military fightback this
year, with Benin set to join a new five-
country regional force due to go into
action shortly.
On Tuesday, Chad's president Idriss Deby
told reporters that efforts to combat the
militants had already succeeded in
"decapitating" the group.
"Boko Haram is decapitated. There are little
groups (of Boko Haram members)
scattered throughout east Nigeria, on the
border with Cameroon," he said in the
capital N'Djamena.
"The war will be short, with the setting up
of the regional force, it will be over by the
end of the year," he added.
Boko Haram has increased the frequency
and intensity of its attacks since President
Muhammadu Buhari took the helm in
Nigeria on May 29. Since then, more than
900 people have been killed in Nigeria
alone, according to an AFP count.
Buhari has vowed to crush the insurgency,
which has made more than 1.5 million
homeless since 2009.
He announced on Friday that Nigeria would
step up domestic arms manufacturing for
the military to cut its reliance on foreign
weaponry in its fight with the Islamists.
He has instructed the defence ministry to
create "a modest military industrial
complex for the local production of
weapons to meet some of the
requirements of the country's armed
forces", his office said in a statement.
Exporting terror -
Buhari's election victory triggered a wave
of optimism for oil-rich Nigeria, which has
Africa's biggest population and economy
but many deep and seemingly intractable
problems.
The military has long argued that it is
hampered by a lack of weaponry, and
Buhari warned Washington last month that
a US refusal to arm his troops because of
"so-called human rights violations" was
helping Boko Haram.
The US has vowed to help Nigeria defeat
the insurgency but it is prohibited under
law from sending weapons to countries
that fail to tackle human rights abuses.
As it struggles with the insurgency at
home, Nigeria is taking steps to prevent
the export of terror abroad, it said earlier
on Wednesday, with a crackdown on young
adults leaving with no apparent means of
supporting themselves.
Immigration officials said almost 24,000
nationals aged 17 to 35 were turned back
at the border between January 2014 and
March this year.
"There have been reports in recent times of
some Nigerians departing to join terrorist
groups especially in the Middle East and
north Africa," Nigerian Immigration Service
(NIS) spokesman Chukwuemeka Obua told
AFP.
No comments:
Post a Comment