5:T698,

Multiple bomb blasts have rocked a crowded textile market in Kano, North-West of Nigeria, amid fears of casualties.

“The blasts, at least three of which occurred almost simultaneously, happened this afternoon near Kwari market,” Maidugu Ahmadu, a resident of the area, told The Anadolu Agency.

“We scampered for safety,” he said. “Of course there are casualties.”

Musa Samari, a local trader, said at least 20 bodies had been taken to Nasarawa General Hospital.

“People – dead bodies – were piled on top of one another in a backless van and taken to hospital,” he told AA.

The death toll, however, could not be independently verified.

“I’m on my way to the scene now,” Kano police spokesman Magaji Majiya told AA. “It’s too early to talk of the magnitude [of the blasts].”

The bombings come two weeks after multiple blasts at Kano’s central mosque claimed at least 50 lives, according to Nigeria’s National Emergency Management Agency.

The mosque attack has been widely blamed on the Boko Haram militant group.

Nigeria continues to battle a five-year Boko Haram insurgency in the country's northeastern region, where more than 13,000 people – mostly civilians – have been killed and the local economy crippled.

The group, which first emerged in the early 2000s preaching against government misrule and corruption, became violent after the death of its leader in 2009 while in police custody.

Boko Haram has been officially outlawed in Nigeria, Turkey and the United States.

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