KANO, Nigeria (AFP) – An explosion rocked a bus station in Nigeria’s second city of Kano on Monday, causing panic and injured bystanders to flee the area, residents said.
The security forces did not immediately comment on the blast in the Sabon Gari area of Kano, the largest city in Nigeria’s mainly Muslim north, and it was not clear if anyone was killed.
“There was a huge blast at the New Road motor park,” said area mechanic Tunde Kazeem.
“The blast was followed by billows of black smoke and there was a lot of confusion with people rushing out of the motor park, some of them with blood on their clothes.”
Kano is among the northern cities attacked repeatedly by Islamist group Boko Haram, blamed for killing hundreds in Nigeria since 2009.
The station was attacked in January of last year in a blast which wounded several people and which was blamed on Boko Haram, but it was not clear what caused the latest explosion.
The targeted station primarily services passengers heading to the mostly Christian south of Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country.