Tragedy as a teen girl is used by terrorist on a suicide attack in Nigeria

The scene of the blast with rescuers on ground

The 10-year-old girl, who was covered with explosives, walked toward a busy crowd in the northeastern city of Maiduguri.

Witnesses and aid workers said the child detonated the bomb as she approached people buying noodles from a food stall in the Customs area of the capital of the northeastern state of Borno.

One eyewitness said the girl blew herself up before she reached her target, seriously injuring one man who was hit by shrapnel.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, which killed one person at around 9.30pm on Saturday.

The bombing echoed similar attacks by Islamist militant group Boko Haram, who are known for using women and children to target civilians.

Witness Grema Usman, who lives in the area, told AFP: "The girl walked towards the crowd but she blew up before she could reach her target.

"She died instantly, while one person was seriously hurt after after he was hit by shrapnel.

"Judging from her corpse the girl was around 10 years old.”

An aid worker said: "The girl was clearly not more than 10 and this could have made her too nervous, making her to detonate the explosives prematurely.”

A second female suicide bomber was caught by the crowd and handed over to police.

Borno state police spokesman Victor Isuku said the bomb was safely detonated by security forces.

The attack comes weeks after two seven-year-old girls killed at least 17 people in a suicide bombing in Maidugari.

Islamist militants loyal to Boko Haram, a group which has pledged allegiance to ISIS, often target the area.

Boko Haram has killed around 15,000 people and displaced more than 2million others in a seven-year insurgency aimed at creating a state adhering to strict Islamic laws in the northeast of Africa's most populous nation.

In early 2015, Boko Haram controlled an area about the size of Belgium.

But it has been pushed out of most of that territory over the past year by Nigeria's army and troops from neighbouring countries, moving to a base in the Sambisa.

Earlier this week, the Nigerian government claimed Boko Haram's last stronghold in the forest, a former game reserve in northeastern Nigeria, had been captured in the "final crushing" of the group.

A video from a man claiming to be Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau denies the jihadists have been pushed out of the stronghold.

Source: Express