Suicide Bomber Kills Five In Gombe Market, 11 Critically Wounded

A suicide bomber killed at least five people and wounded 11 on Friday near a marketplace in northeastern Nigeria, an emergency services official told Agency France-Presse.

“It was a suicide bombing,” said Saidu Ahmed Minin, head of operation of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) in Gombe. “Six people were killed including the bomber and 11 others were injured. We evacuated them to the hospital.”

Witnesses said the blast went off at 7:25 pm (1825 GMT) in the packed market neighbourhood of Kasuwar Arawa, close to the public university in Gombe, which is capital of Gombe state.

“The bomber went into the crowd of people waiting to recharge their telephones” at a public charging station “and then set off the explosive,” taxi driver Idris Babandada told AFP by telephone. “The explosion shook the whole neighbourhood.”

No one claimed immediate responsiblity for the attack, but Boko Haram militants are increasingly powerful in the north-east of Nigeria and Gombe has been hit by several suicide bombers recently, most of them at bus stations and near military installations.

An aid worker in Gombe said that the injured were being treated by aid volunteers and nurses, because doctors in the city were on strike.