At least 47 dead in market bomb blast in NE Nigeria: witnesses

August 12, 2015 00:37

At least 47 people were killed and dozens wounded in a bomb blast today 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, 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 blast this afternoon," a nurse at Biu General Hospital, around 50 kilometres (30 miles) away, told AFP.

He said the injuries from the blast are mostly "severe" and that the death toll was expected 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 napsack used for spraying herbicides. It was smuggled into the market and apparently abandoned... This is no doubt the handiwork of Boko Haram."

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