An explosion shook a marketplace in Nigeria’s northeast on Wednesday, killing six people, according to police and emergency response services.
The attack took place on Tuesday evening at a popular livestock market in Taraba state’s Ardo-Kola local government region, where communities had been relatively unscathed by the decade-long Islamic extremist fighting in the northeast in the previous year.
According to Abdullahi Usman, a police spokesperson in Taraba, three persons died immediately, and the death toll had risen to six by Wednesday morning. According to him, one of the attackers was also dead.
The explosion injured more than 100 people, including 19 people who were “seriously injured” and are being treated in hospitals, according to Usman. Many traders’ items were destroyed in the incident, according to Ladan Ayuba of Nigeria’s National Emergency Management Agency.
Northern Nigeria has been hit by a rash of violent attacks in recent months, and this is the second such incident in Taraba this year. The first was in January when a Catholic school was targeted, though no one was killed.
No one has claimed responsibility for the violence in Taraba, which borders Adamawa State and is one of the locations in northeast Nigeria hardest hit by the Islamic extremist insurgency.
In the northeast, the West African country is still fighting a 10-year-old insurgency by Islamic extremist insurgents. According to the United Nations Development Program, more than 35,000 people have perished and millions have been displaced as a result of the violence. Boko Haram and a subsidiary organization, the Islamic State in West Africa Province, are fighting for strict Shariah law to be implemented.
According to security specialists, armed groups in Nigeria’s turbulent northeast frequently outnumber and outgun Nigerian security personnel.
In the recent year, militants in Nigeria’s northeast have primarily targeted Borno state and the Lake Chad region, exploding bombs at marketplaces in rural settlements.
Nigeria is also troubled by escalating violence from rebels in the northwest, in addition to the extreme rebellion in the northeast.
