Up to 10 people were killed when a suicide bomber blew himself up on Friday at a busy market in a town in, Gombi, Adamawa State in northern Nigeria where the jihadist Boko Haram group is waging an insurgency, residents and a Red Cross official said.
Boko Haram has been waging an almost seven-year campaign in Nigeria’s remote north to build an Islamic state. Thousands have been killed and more than two million people displaced by the campaign.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility but the attack bore the hallmarks of Boko Haram, which has been using suicide bombers since the army, helped by neighbours Chad and Cameroon, expelled the group from territory it had captured previously.
A male suicide bomber attacked the market, killing eight people and wounding 28, said a local Red Cross official.
Two traders at the market put the death toll at 10, while a police spokesman said four had been killed and 17 wounded.
A trader, who said he narrowly escaped death, Adamu Gombi, said the attack occurred in the early afternoon.
“It was around 12 noon, while we were busy trading at Kasuwar Buhu, a teenage boy detonated the bomb, killing himself and several others.
“As I am talking to you now, many lives were lost. I saw about ten corpses and those injured are being evacuated to hospitals,” he said.
Gombi, which was recently recaptured from Boko Haram, lies near the border of Borno state, where the insurgency started.
