At least 37 persons have been confirmed dead and 23 others injured in an explosion at a military checkpoint at a road that leads to Biu town in southern Borno State.
Soldiers on duty had tried to stop a bus carrying armed men and improvised explosives, witnesses and security sources said. Among those killed in the explosion were travellers and children hawking wares.
An operative of the local youth vigilante, a.k.a. Civilian-JTF, said the bus that exploded was exactly the type that the suicide bomber used to kill seven traders and injure a score of others in the town’s market five days back.
At the eastern entrance to Biu, soldiers mounted a major checkpoint that causes motorists to form long queues, with passengers having to get off their vehicles and walk past for checking.
A Boko Haram member pretending to be a harmless traveller had a grenade in his hand as he joined other passengers to raise his hands when passing through the military checkpoint.
We learnt that an eagle-eyed operative of the Civilian-JTF was quick to spot him – as he tried to pull out the safety pin of the grenade – and quickly took a shot with his double-barrel rifle and hit him in the head. But it was too late as the grenade had already been activated even as the man slumped, killing some of the passengers and the insurgent’s other gang members who had not alighted from their vehicles.
The blast from the grenade caused two more explosions from the car filled with armed Boko Haram terrorists, killing all of them.
A Civilian-JTF operative, Muhammed Miringa, who saw it all said: “It was at the checkpoint; a bus filled with explosives and about 10 passengers came to the checkpoint at the outskirts of Biu. The normal tradition is for passengers to come down, raise their hands and walk through the checkpoint with the soldiers watching.
“But when this particular bus arrived, a passenger came down from the front seat and raised his hands as others were doing when passing through the checkpoint, but a smart Civilian-JTF operative had spotted that the man had a grenade in his hand and was trying to pull out the safety pin. The Civilian-JTF who had a double-barrel rifle with him quickly shot him in the head. The Boko Haram man fell back towards the bus and the grenade went off and caused the car and other passengers inside to blow up. Some other explosives in the car, too, exploded as well.
“Some other members of the Boko Haram who were also in a vehicle behind began to shoot and the driver of that car managed to reverse and tried to escape with other terrorists, but the soldiers continued to engage them.
Another Civilian-JTF operative, Musa Madu, said he was lucky to be a little far from the vehicle when it exploded.
“Everything happened within seconds,” he said. “We had to flee because the atmosphere was too dangerous to stay close and bullets were flying everywhere; but I saw many bodies, especially of children hawking peanut cakes and oranges near the military checkpoint.”
He further narrated that while the operatives were busy attending to the injured, another group of the Boko Haram terrorists tried to attack from another part of the town but soldiers were able to repel them and kill many of them.
“That was why we have about 17 of them killed in the two attacks,” he said.
Muhammed Miringa, the Civilian-JTF operative, who had helped in evacuating victims, said those killed in the blast and brought to the hospital were 19 in total, comprising the children hawking wares and travellers, and a female member of the Civilian-JTF who had died in the blast.
“We have 23 injured ones. About 17 Boko Haram members were killed, some in the exploded bus, and their bodies were battered beyond recognition. Some others were killed in the shootout.
“In total, we have 37 dead casualties, comprising 20 innocent persons and 17 Boko Haram terrorists,” Miringa stated.
A top security officer in Maiduguri, who confirmed the incident to journalists but asked not to be mentioned in this report, said: “From what my officers there told me, about nine innocent person were killed in the blast, while most of the Boko Haram terrorists got killed in the blast.”
