DHAKA: A truck exploded in a huge fireball killing at least 15 people on Tuesday in the northeast Nigerian city of Maiduguri, the latest attack in the area repeatedly hit by Boko Haram Islamists.

The bomb rocked Maiduguri’s busiest roundabout near the popular Monday Market during morning rush hour and its force scattered body parts on the rooftops of surrounding shops, according to witnesses.

Elderly women who line the road selling peanuts and kola nuts to commuters were among the victims, as were children who beg at the roundabout each day.

The defence ministry said in a tweet that an ‘improvised explosive device’ went off in ‘a van loaded with charcoal’ and that the area had been cordoned off, reports The Straits Times.

BDST: 2011 HRS, JULY 01, 2014