Two bombs exploded at a crowded marketplace in Maiduguri on Saturday
night, and many are feared killed and wounded, witnesses said.
Bloodied
people screaming for help were running out of buildings billowing with
smoke, they said. Trader Mallam Samalia said some people were blown
apart.
The second blast caught people trying to help those injured
in the first explosion in the Bintu-Suga neighborhood of Ngomari
suburb, he said.
It appeared to be a car bomb, from a pickup truck loaded with wood, Samalia told The Associated Press by telephone.
"I'm seeing people carrying bloody bodies," he said. "There are parts of bodies littering the street."
Mechanic
Yahaya Adamu said he was on his way home when he heard the blasts, two
minutes apart. "There's black smoke everywhere now. I'm running home to
see if my family is safe."
The police commissioner didn't immediately answer his phone to confirm the reports.
It
was the first attack in months in Maiduguri, capital of Borno state and
the headquarters of a military force tasked with suppressing the Boko
Haram uprising.
More than 300 people were killed in February alone in attacks increasing in frequency and deadliness, all in Yobe and Adamawa.
There
is growing anger at the military's apparent inability to halt the
attacks, with soldiers reportedly abandoning checkpoints in two recent
attacks that killed nearly 100 people, including 59 students, because
they are outnumbered and outgunned.
That anger will be fueled by
reports that a military fighter jet targeting extremist hideouts bombed a
village in Yobe state and killed at least 20 civilians on Friday,
according to survivors.
They said the airstrike hit Daglun, a
village near the border with Cameroon and killed mainly elderly people
because most residents had fled recent violence and rumors that the
military is about to mount more attacks.
Military spokesman Capt.
Jafaru Nuru of the 23rd Armored Brigade operating in Yobe state said he
was unaware that any airstrike had killed civilians.
An elderly
resident of Daglun said he was sitting under a tree when he saw bombs
dropping from a military aircraft. A nurse at the local hospital said it
received many dead and wounded. A community leader said 20 people died
and 25 were wounded.
All requested anonymity citing fear of military reprisals.
Jets have been bombing the area for weeks.
