Six people, including three policemen, were killed in a suspected Boko Haram suicide attack at a petrol station in Nigeria’s biggest city, Kano, police said on Friday.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility although Kano has often been the target of Boko Haram bombings during the Islamist group’s five-year insurgency.
A truck unloading petrol at the Nagarshiku filling station in Kano, Nigeria was struck by a vehicle in what is suspected to have been a deliberate suicide attack and caused a massive explosion. The entire station, along with an adjacent bus depot, was set on fire.
According to witnesses, the vehicle hit the truck and caused an immediate fireball which shot streams of fire in all directions. While not confirmed as a deliberate act officially, people at the scene have indicated that it did not appear to be an accidental crash.
“A man driving a Toyota Sienna drove into the filling station as if he was going to buy fuel. The vehicle exploded causing six deaths, including three policemen,” the Kano state police commissioner Adelenre Shinaba told reporters.
“It is obviously a suicide attack,” he said of the blast in the Hotoro area of the city and blamed “the terrorists we’ve been battling”, referring to Boko Haram Islamists.
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