By Olarewaju Kola
MAIDUGURI
A suspected suicide bombing rocked a car park in Potiskum town in Nigeria's northeastern Yobe State on Sunday, killing at least five people.
"A Boko Haram bomber pretended he was a passenger and entered a car at Bulala park along Jos road in Potiskum," Aminu Suleiman, an eyewitness, told The Anadolu Agency by phone.
"Minutes after, the bomb went off," he recalled. "Five people near the car died on the spot and many people were injured."
The area was thrown into confusion as many people fled the scene, fearing a second blast.
"Many injured people were quickly rushed to the hospital by police and some volunteers," Abdulsalam Wuyo, who participated in the rescue, told AA.
"The suicide bomber and four people died," he said, adding that two people were critically injured.
A medical staff at the Potiskum General Hospital confirmed that five dead bodies had been brought to the hospital.
"So far, we've received 35 injured persons and they are receiving treatment now," he told AA, requesting anonymity.
Boko Haram has recently stepped up bomb attacks, mostly by suicide bombers, in the commercial town of Potiskum.
Two police officers were killed last week after a suspected suicide bomber was arrested by the police.
The attack came almost a week after two female bombers killed seven people in twin explosions.
A suicide bomber, who disguised as a student, ran into an early morning assembly and detonated the explosive devices, killing at least 40 students in late 2014.
The attack came barely a month after another bomber blew himself and about 45 members of a Shiite group up during a peaceful procession.
For the last five years, Nigeria has battled a fierce Boko Haram insurgency that has ravaged the country's volatile northeast and claimed thousands of lives.
The year 2014 proved to be the insurgency's bloodiest year yet, with increasingly frequent attacks, higher death tolls and a deluge of displaced persons.
A seemingly emboldened Boko Haram recently stepped up its militant activity, seizing several areas of Nigeria's Adamawa, Borno and Yobe states, where it has since declared a self-styled "Islamic caliphate."
Nigeria's National Emergency Management Agency said Tuesday that a total of 981,416 people had been displaced by the violence while as many as nine million had been "directly or indirectly affected."
