Boko Haram bomber kills at least six at Adamawa cattle market

A suspected Boko Haram suicide bomber has blown himself up killing at least seven people, Tuesday at a cattle market in the rural town of Garkida, in Adamawa state, police said.

Witnesses put the figure higher, saying up to 10 had been killed in the busy market when the blast stuck at shortly before 2 p.m.

“The suicide bomber killed six people in Garkida market,” said Osman Abubakar, a spokesman for Adamawa police.

It is the second suicide attack in northern Nigeria in less than a week.

Thousands have been killed in Boko Haram’s six-year insurgency that at its height saw the militant Islamists control an area the size of Belgium, but the group has been pushed from most of the territory it controlled in the past few weeks.

On Saturday, at least nine people were killed in Yobe state when a woman blew herself up at a bus station.

Although no-one has yet claimed responsibility, the militant group Boko Haram is suspected to be behind the attack.

The bomb went off at about 12:15 GMT in the village of Garkida in Adamawa state.

A BBC correspondent in Abuja said locals at the entrance to the market were suspicious before the blast and tried to prevent the bomber going in when he detonated explosives strapped to his body.

The attacks come as the Islamist insurgents are under increased pressure from the Nigerian military, our correspondent adds.

Officials say most of the militants camps in the vast Sambisa forest have been destroyed and many of the jihadists killed while some are on the run.

But observers believe many of the fighters are still alive and capable of regrouping and rearming to continue their attacks.

In January at least 19 people were killed and several injured by a bomb strapped to a girl reported to be aged about 10 in north-eastern Nigeria.