Four passengers have died and 10 others have sustained varying degrees of injuries after a vehicle drove over an improvised explosive device (IED) suspected to have been planted on the road by terrorists in Borno State.
The driver of the vehicle, a Suzuki pick-up truck, was said to have unknowingly hit the hidden explosive, triggering a the explosion that left the vehicle mangled.
It was learnt that the four deceased passengers were sitting at a section of the vehicle close to the location where the bomb was planted by the terrorists.
Eyewitnesses on Wednesday narrated that the explosion occurred along the Maiduguri–Damboa highway in Komala village, Borno, at around 3:30pm, causing a pandemonium around the axis.
The Spokesperson for Borno Police Command, ASP Nahum Daso, who confirmed the incident yesterday, said: “I confirm that the incident happened. Four persons died and 10 sustained varying degrees of injuries.
Daso added that the injured victims have been rushed to the State Specialist Hospital in Maiduguri, the state capital, for medical care.
The Guild reports that the tragic explosion is the latest in a series of IED attacks that have rocked the region, especially Borno.
On April 12, just under three months ago, a similar explosion killed eight people and injured eleven others in the same Komala village.
In that case, a Hummer bus with plate number Jigawa MMR144 was blown apart after triggering a landmine, with authorities blaming Boko Haram insurgents.
Only six days before this latest tragedy, a suicide bomber infiltrated a crowded fish market in Konduga Local Government Area, detonating an explosive that killed at least ten civilians and injured seven more with the attacker also dying on the spot.
