Many feared dead, as suicide bombers hit Damboa

NIGERIAN police and military officials say that many casualties may have occurred as six suicide bombers barged into a Sallah crowd and killed at least 20 people on the spot in a village near Damboa.

Angry residents of Damboa, however, dismissed the suicide bombers theory insisting that it was a misguided missile from the Nigerian Army tank that hit their people.

When contacted Borno State Police Commissioner Damian Chukwu, however, said Sunday that people were celebrating the end of Ramadan fast on Saturday when they were hit by the explosions in Abachari town near Damboa area.

He said that in addition to the fatalities, forty-eight other people fatally injured on the spot were rushed to treatment centres.

Responding to the allegation too, Major General Rogers Nicholas, however, said that army troops in the area were there to stabilize the situation and maintain general safety and will not hurt civilians.

He dispelled as rumours the allegation that the explosions were from military artilleries.

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Some of the injured have been taken to the red cross clinic in Damboa and General hospital Biu and Maiduguri while very critical cases went to the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital UMTH.

Sources say between Forty to fifty may have been referred by the red cross to general hospitals since the Damboa General hospital is still under rehabilitation.

“The ICRC is our only saving grace on ground,” said a local government official who spoke to Tribune Online.

Exhonorating the military further, spokesperson for the third armoured division, Col. Ogunsanya said it was not the military that fired those missiles.

“Those deaths were not as a result of military action. It was as a result of suicide bombings “Ogunsanya said.

An eyewitness, however, said that the Boko Haram insurgents were waiting at the sides knowing that the people always crowd around to sympathise so they fired rocket-propelled grenades into the crowds at the scene of the explosions increasing the number of casualties further higher.

“There were two suicide attacks and rocket-propelled explosions in Damboa last night which killed about forty people and left several others injured.

The latest death toll is about forty but it may increase because many among the injured may not survive due to excessive bleeding” said the eyewitness who prefered anonymity.

An official of the council area who preferred anonymity confirmed that a large chunk of the casualties is in emergency wards were doctors are battling to save their lives as at Sunday evening.