SAN FRANCISCO, January 01, (THEWILL) – A girl, barely 10 years old, sent on New Year’s Eve to blow up some Maiduguri residents failed her mission as the girl self-destructed before she got to her target.
While she died, only one person was seriously injured, hit by shrapnel
Reports indicate that the girl approached a crowd buying noodles from a food vendor in the Customs area of the city around 9:30 pm on Saturday and detonated her explosives.
Although no one has claimed responsibility the attack bore the hallmark of Boko Haram Islamists who are notorious for using suicide bombers, mostly women and young girls, in attacking civilian targets.
A witness revealed that “The girl walked towards the crowd but she blew up before she could reach her target.”
“She died instantly, while one person was seriously hurt after after he was hit by shrapnel.”
“Judging from her corpse, the girl was around 10 years old.”
An aid worker involved in the evacuation of the body gave a similar estimate of the bomber’s age.
“The girl was clearly not more than 10 and this could have made her too nervous, making her to detonate the explosives prematurely,” the aid worker suggested.
Meanwhile, Borno State Police Spokesman, Victor Isuku, revealed that a second female suicide bomber was caught and lynched by an angry mob. Her bomb was safely detonated by security forces, he said.
Saturday’s attack came a week after Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari said the jihadist group had been routed from Sambisa forest, its last stronghold in Borno state.
Story by Oputah David
