Female Suspected of Being Suicide Bomber Beaten to Death by Mob

Police and eyewitnesses have reported that on Sunday, a mob beat a woman to death in the northeastern Nigerian city of Bauchi in the belief that she was a suicide bomber.

According to Bauchi state police spokesman Haruna Mohammed, “at about 0700 hours (0600 GMT), information at our disposal revealed that a yet to be identified lady who allegedly refused to allow herself to be screened at the entrance of Muda Lawal Market Bauchi was attacked by an irate mob.” On the ground sources have disclosed that the woman, who was said to have been a teenager, was attacked when she refused to be screened at the entrance to the market. Sources have indicated that the woman came under suspicion when two bottles were found strapped to both sides of her waist after she had refused to pass a metal detector. Witnesses have indicated that the woman was first beaten, with the mob than placing a tire covered with petrol over her head and setting it on fire. Police officials have stated that they arrived at the scene after the woman had already been killed. No arrests have been made. The exact circumstances of her death remain unclear, with some reports suggesting that she had been accompanied by another woman while other reports stating that she had been with a male escort. No explosives had been found on her.

A series of suicide bombings in northeastern Nigeria over the past week, all of which have been blamed on Boko Haram militants, have risen tensions across the region as the government has claimed that the tide will soon turn against the militant group. With a number of deadly attacks in recent weeks carried out by female suicide bombers, it is possible that the woman in this incident had been sent in to see whether it was possible to enter the mrket without being searched. Boko Haram in recent months has increasingly become dependent on using female suicide bombers to carry out deadly attacks, with young women and teenagers used to carry explosives into busy markets and bus stations. This has raised fears that some of the hundreds of kidnap victims are now being forced into carrying out bomb attacks either by detonating the explosives themselves or by carrying devices that are then remotely triggered.