A suicide bomber killed four people and wounded
dozens Sunday in an attack on a bus station in
Potiskum, Yobe State capital, police and hospital
have said.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility,
but the town has often come under attack from
Boko Haram militants.
Last Sunday, it was the scene of a bombing in a
crowded market carried out by two female suicide
attackers, one believed to be aged around 15.
Witnesses to the latest attack said the explosion
ripped through the bus station at Tashar Kunne,
on the outskirts of town, at around 10:30 am
(0930 GMT).
“(The bomber) slowed his car twice… some
distance from the bus station and he suddenly
increased speed and rammed into buses lined up
waiting for passengers,” local trader Umar Sani
said.
A police officer said four bodies and 48 injured
people had been taken from the scene.
A nurse at the Potiskum General Hospital gave a
similar death and injury toll, and said local
residents had rushed to the hospital in search of
their loved ones.
She described the suicide bomber as a young
man.
Brutal raids, massacres, suicide bomb attacks
and kidnappings by Boko Haram have claimed at
least 13,000 lives and driven an estimated 1.5
million people from their homes, mainly in arid
northeast Nigeria.
Neighbouring Cameroon, Chad and Niger have
launched a regional bid to combat the Islamists,
as their attacks spread beyond Nigeria and
concern mounts over the failure of Nigerian
authorities to regain control.
The military moves come after the Islamists
seized the town of Baga town on the shores of
Lake Chad earlier this month in what many say
could be Boko Haram’s deadliest attack.
Satellite pictures released by Amnesty and Human
Rights Watch last week showed widespread
destruction with around 3,700 buildings in Baga
and nearby Doron Baga damaged or destroyed.
Amnesty says as many as 2,000 civilians may
have been massacred, but Nigeria’s army
objected to the “sensational” claims and said that
the death toll in Baga was about 150.
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