Hundreds flee as another bomb blast rocks Maiduguri

Posted by admin Borno, Headlines, State News Tuesday, December 13th, 2011

A man suspected to be a member of Jama’atu Ahlis Sunnah Lidda’awati Wal Jihad, popularly known as Boko Haram on Tuesday morning lost his life while detonating an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) in London Chiki area of Maiduguri, the Borno State capital.

Also, several people were injured in the blast while hundreds of people fled their homes as a result of the blast.

The incident, confirmed by Field Operation Officer of the Joint Task Force, Colonel Victor Ebhaleme, happened at about 9.00 a.m. and created fear in the people as hundreds fled the area to safety.

Colonel Ebhaleme, who confirmed that a sect member died in the process of detonating the explosive, said that it was targeted at a military patrol vehicle that was passing through the densely populated residential area.

According to the Field Operation Officer of the Joint Task Force, “we actually heard the explosion around 9.00 a.m. and we quickly rushed to the scene where we discovered that a suspected Boko Haram sect member died in the process of detonating an explosive device.”

Colonel Ebhaleme said that the Joint Task Force was able to rescue some women and children from one of the houses that went ablaze as a result of the explosion while five service men arrived in good time to put off the inferno.

A resident of the area, who is a member of staff of the University of Maiduguri told Nigerian Tribune that several people who were injured in the blast were brought to the hospital between 10.00 a.m and 11.00 a.m.

The witness said: “I passed the military check point at about 7.15 a.m, the place was normal but on reaching my office, I heard the blast as well as gunshots that usually followed, but that has been part of our lives here, as we only talked about it with some of my colleagues and laughed it out.

“However, when I was going to the labour ward, I stopped at the emergency ward when suddenly I saw some people coming in and I was told that they were victims of the blast which we heard early on. At first, I thought they were dead bodies that were brought in and left because I don’t usually stay around to see what was happening because we see this everyday. We later learnt that it was only the person who attempted to detonate the bomb that was killed, the rest were said to have been hit by the bullet,” the witness stressed.

-Tribunewp_posts