Suicide bombers killed over 60 people in Damaturu and Gombe towns.
Last weekend in which Nigerian Muslims joined other Muslims the world over to celebrate the 2015 feast of the Ramadan, turned out to be a bloody one in north eastern Nigeria as suicide bombers in separate operations killed over 60 people in the towns of Damaturu and Gombe, BBC reported.
On the eve of the celebration on Thursday, July 17, 2015, explosions targeting people shopping for the Eid feast at a market in the north-eastern city of Gombe killed at least 49 people, the National Post and BBC reported. The following day, Friday, July 17, 2015 suicide bombers went into action detonating bombs that killed at least nine people at prayers for the Muslim festival of Eid in the town of Damaturu. The Nigerian Army Spokesman, Colonel Sani Usman said there were two bomb blasts at a venue where volunteers were waiting to screen worshippers.
He said the two female suicide bombers included a 10-year-old girl. The explosions were at an open-air praying area, known as Eid grounds, which were set aside for Muslims to gather to pray at the end of the holy fasting month of Ramadan. Due to threats of a Boko Haram attack, worshippers were being searched before they reached the Eid grounds. Unfortunately, this was where the explosions happened.
The Army Spokesman said four people died in the first explosion and five died in the second explosion. "The first blast went off around 07:15 local time (06:15 GMT) while security volunteers who had come earlier than worshippers were waiting for the worshippers so they could assist in crowd control," BBC quoted an eye witness Ahmad Adamu, a security volunteer as saying. He was further quoted to have said that, "while we were attending to the victims we heard another blast about 500 metres away." No group has however claimed responsibility for the attacks but Boko Haram is highly suspected as its militants have stepped up the campaign of violence. Reports says that some 300 people have died of suicide bombings and other attacks in Nigeria in this month of July 2015.
