How Yola suicide bombers staged a fight before detonation

dimeji akinloye

June 5, 2015 8:51 PM

Police said the bombers, who had explosives strapped to their bodies, pretended to be fighting inside the market, and detonated the bomb after onlookers gathered around them.

Police said on Friday, June 5, that the two suicide bombers who killed no fewer than 31 persons and left 38 injured at the populated Jimeta market in Yola yesterday, faked a fight to draw people closer.

A police spokesman in the zone, Othman Abubakar, said the bombers, who had explosives strapped to their bodies, entered the Jimeta Main Market after sundown on Thursday and “pretended to be fighting.”

“The staged fight between the two men attracted the attention of people nearby to see what was happening,” Abubakar told AFP.

“When people had gathered they detonated their explosives. They killed a sizeable number of people,” he added.

It is believed that the dangerous sect, Boko Haram is behind the attack, as the militants have launched series of back-to-back attacks in the northern zones since the inauguration of President Muhammadu Buhari on May 29.

The Yola attack came hours after a suspected suicide bombing at a checkpoint outside a military barracks in Maiduguri, the capital of neighbouring Borno state that killed four people.

dimeji akinloye