At least 34 persons were killed by a teenage girl suicide bomber on Tuesday at a crowded market in the northeastern Nigerian city of Maiduguri, witnesses said.
The blast by a female teenager occurred in the market near the Old Elkanemi Cinema in the late afternoon, said Musa Danbaba, a member of a civilian protection militia. He said 34 bodies were counted and many more were wounded.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the bombing, but it bears the hallmarks of Nigeria’s extremist group Boko Haram, France24 reported.
Mike Omeri, the national security spokesman, called it “an act of desperation and comes at a time when Boko Haram is suffering heavy losses”.
The Maiduguri market is where suicide bombers on Saturday detonated explosives that killed 54 people.
Another bomb was discovered and defused by police on Tuesday in Babalayi, a densely populated district of Maiduguri and about 500 meters from the scene of explosion, a member of the civilian joint taskforce said.
Boko Haram is waging a nearly 6-year insurgency to impose its authority in Nigeria. An estimated 10,000 people were killed by Boko Haram violence last year, according to the US Council on Foreign Relations.
