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Nigeria Kano blast: Boko Haram blamed for six deaths | Nigeria Kano blast: Boko Haram blamed for six deaths |
(about 2 hours later) | |
At least six people have been killed in a suicide bombing at a college in northern Nigeria's biggest city, Kano, witnesses say. | At least six people have been killed in a suicide bombing at a college in northern Nigeria's biggest city, Kano, witnesses say. |
The female bomber is reported to have blown herself up as students queued to check their names on an admission list. | |
Meanwhile the government says a 10-year-old girl with a suicide belt has been arrested in a neighbouring state. | |
Militant Islamist group Boko Haram has been waging an insurgency in Nigeria since 2009. | |
The college bombing was the fifth attack in Kano since Sunday. | |
'Huge crowd' | |
At least three of the attacks were carried out by female bombers, in what BBC Nigeria analyst Aliyu Tanko describes as a new trend in the insurgency. | |
It is unclear whether the group is recruiting female bombers or forcing kidnapped girls to carry out suicide missions, he says. | |
Boko Haram is holding more than 200 girls that its gunmen abducted during a raid in April on a boarding school in Chibok town in the northern state of Borno. | |
Who are Boko Haram? | Who are Boko Haram? |
Who are Boko Haram? | Who are Boko Haram? |
Profile: Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau | Profile: Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau |
Why Nigeria has not defeated Boko Haram | Why Nigeria has not defeated Boko Haram |
The bomber who carried out the latest attack was hidden in the crowd at the Kano State Polytechnic, a witness, Isyaku Adamu, told the AFP news agency. | |
"It was a huge crowd and people were jostling to go through the lists," Mr Adamu is quoted as saying. | |
The bomber detonated an "improvised explosive device", killing six people, government spokesman Mike Omeri confirmed in a statement. | |
The BBC's Yusuf Ibrahim Yakasai reports from Kano that bodies were strewn around the blast site. | |
About seven people are said to have been wounded in the explosion. | About seven people are said to have been wounded in the explosion. |
At least 19 people lost their lives in the series of bombings in Kano in the past week. | At least 19 people lost their lives in the series of bombings in Kano in the past week. |
In a separate incident, Mr Omeri said three suspected militants were arrested in Katsina state on Tuesday. | |
The suspects included one male and two girls, aged 18 and 10, he said. | |
The security forces found the younger girl had been "strapped with an explosive belt", Mr Omeri added. | |
In May 2013, Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan imposed a state of emergency in the northern states of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa, vowing to crush the insurgency. | |
However the militants have stepped up attacks, killing more than 2,000 civilians this year, according to New York-based Human Rights Watch. |