A young female suicide bomber yesterday, attacked a commercial vehicle in a motor park in Damaturu, killing no fewer than six people including a pregnant woman and a baby, while 26 others were injured.
This was just as another bomb blast occurred at a security check-point in the town barely 10 minutes after the suicide attack at the motor park, injuring some residents.
Witnesses of the motor park suicide attack said the girl, (should be aged between 13 and 15 years), had attempted to enter the facility but was prevented by local security personnel stationed at the gate of the park located at the heart of the town and few metres from the Damaturu Divisional Police Station.
A police source said: "She was a very young girl between 13 and 15 years of age."
“She tried to enter the motor park but was prevented by the security guard.
“At that point, she was still around the gate, when a Volkswagen Golf car carrying some passengers came out of the park. She approached the car and detonated the explosive devices strapped to her body.”
However, DSP Toyin Gbadegesin, Public Relations Officer of the Yobe Police Command, stated that, “the girl detonated the explosive at the screening centre of the motor park gate, killing herself and four others, including a pregnant woman and a baby.”
Yobe State governor, Ibrahim Gaidam, who described the twin blasts as callous, senseless and condemnable attacks added that he was saddened by the incident and expressed his condolences to the victims’ families.
“Governor Ibrahim Gaidam has been briefed about the two suicide bomb explosions in Damaturu in the early hours of today (yesterday) in which six people were confirmed dead and 26 others injured. Once again, Gaidam is heartbroken,” a statement by the Director of Press Affairs to the governor, Abdullahi Bego, read in part.
As stated by Bego, the governor has directed that injured victims should be given quick and free treatment at the Sani Abacha Specialist Hospital, where they had been taken for medical care.
He assured that the hospital and the State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) officials were, “doing everything necessary” to provide support needed by the victims in line with the directive of the governor.