Blast rips through packed crowds in town visited last week by president, Muhammadu Buhari, who declared that Boko Haram was close to defeat

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

Heavy casualties are feared after a bomb blast ripped through packed crowds in Yola, north-east Nigeria, just days after the president, Muhammadu Buhari, visited declaring that terrorist organisation Boko Haram was close to defeat.

“The explosion happened in the midst of a large crowd because the area houses a livestock market, an open-air eatery and a mosque,” said Red Cross official Aliyu Maikano.



Initial reports suggested that at least 32 people were killed and 80 injured, according to the Reuters news agency.

One local resident, who asked not to be identified, said the blast in the Jambutu area happened shortly after evening prayers as people left the mosque to eat.

“The area has been taken over by aid workers and security operatives so that ambulances are going to and fro carrying the victims to hospital. I believe the toll will be high,” he said.

The explosion bore all the hallmarks of Boko Haram, which has attacked Yola with suicide bombs and improvised explosive devices in recent months.

Last Friday, Buhari was in Yola to decorate soldiers for bravery in the counter-insurgency and to visit a camp for people displaced by six years of violence that has resulted in at least 17,000 deaths.

He told troops that he believed Boko Haram “are very close to defeat” and urged soldiers “to remain vigilant, alert and focused to prevent Boko Haram from sneaking into our communities to attack soft targets”.

Tuesday’s blast was the first in Nigeria this month, indicating that the army’s strategy to cut off the Islamists’ supply lines and target their camps was paying off.

Buhari has set his military commanders a deadline of the end of next month to crush the rebels, who have increasingly taken to attacking border areas of neighbouring Chad, Niger and Cameroon.

But the Yola explosion shows the difficulty in completely neutralising the threat, particularly in crowded urban areas.

On Monday, the army said it had foiled an attack in which terrorists planned to use high-powered assault weapons and improvised explosive devices in the capital of Borno state, Maiduguri, as well as uncovered a bomb-making factory.

In October, 27 people were killed and 96 injured in a blast at a mosque in Jambutu, while in September seven people died and 20 were injured by a bomb left at the camp visited by Buhari last week. Two suicide bombers blew themselves up at one of Yola’s main markets in June, killing 31.

Terrorist killings up by 80% in 2014, fuelling flow of refugees, report says Read more

Boko Haram was named in the latest Global Terrorism Index as “the most deadly terrorist group in the world” on Tuesday, having killed 6,644 people last year.

The index, published by the Institute for Economics and Peace, said the Islamic State group, to which Boko Haram has pledged allegiance, killed 6,073.

It highlighted “the major intensification of the terrorist threat in Nigeria” and said it had “witnessed the largest increase in terrorist deaths ever recorded by any country”.