Mob Kills Nigerian Girl Accused of Terrorism

A young girl suspected to have been planning a suicide bombing was beaten to death and then set on fire in a Nigerian vegetable market. The girl, who was traveling with another young woman, refused to be searched at the market’s entrance which alarmed the community. As the Guardian notes, there have been a rash of suicide bombings thought to be linked to the Islamic terrorist group, Boko Haram.

From the Guardian:

People overpowered one girl and discovered she had two bottles strapped to her body, he said. They clubbed her to death, put a tire doused in fuel over her head and set it on fire, he said.

It seems doubtful the girl was actually a bomber as she did not detonate any explosives when she was attacked, said Police deputy superintendent Mohammad Haruna. He said she was the victim of mob action carried out by an irate crowd.

According to the Guardian, it’s not clear that the girl was in fact planning to carry out an attack:

It seems doubtful the girl was actually a bomber as she did not detonate any explosives when she was attacked, said Police Deputy Superintendent Mohammad Haruna. He described her as the victim of “mob action carried out by an irate crowd.”

In a country where approximately 10,000 people have been killed by Boko Haram just in the last year, it’s easy understand how a suspicious person can catapult communities into panic. But the manifestation of that suspicion – in the case of this young woman – is devastating.