Up to ten people were killed when a suicide bomber blew himself up on Friday at a busy market in a town in northern Nigeria where the jihadist Boko Haram group is waging an insurgency, residents and a Red Cross official said.

Boko Haram has been waging an almost seven-year campaign in Nigeria’s remote north to build an Islamic state. Thousands have been killed and more than two million people displaced by the campaign.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility but the attack bore the hallmarks of Boko Haram, which has been using suicide bombers since the army, helped by neighbours Chad and Cameroon, expelled the group from territory it had captured previously.

A male suicide bomber attacked the market of Gombi in Adawama State, killing eight people and wounding 28, said a local Red Cross official.

Two traders at the market put the death toll at ten, while a police spokesman said four had been killed and 17 wounded. Gombi lies near the border of the remote northeastern Borno State, where the insurgency started. (Reuters)