MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (Reuters) – A bomb at an outdoor bar in a remote part of eastern Nigeria killed at least one person and wounded 11 on Thursday, a witness said.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blast in the town of Jalingo, Taraba state, an area which has been occasionally targeted by Islamist sect Boko Haram.
The sect is waging a low level insurgency against President Goodluck Jonathan’s government and wants to impose sharia law on the northern part of Nigeria, a country whose 160 million people are spilt roughly evenly between Muslims and Christians.
The group has been blamed for hundreds of deaths in bombings and shootings this year.
It usually targets members of the security forces or government officials, though churches and bars are also frequent targets.
Witness Sadiq Adamu said the blast shook the area in the late evening.
“I saw one dead body and three people were critically injured and taken off to hospital,” he said.
Police in the area were not immediately available for comment. In April, a bomb blast struck a police chief’s convoy in Jalingo, killing 11 people, although it has been largely quiet since then.