The driver of a pick-up truck and his conductor were killed, and one passenger wounded, when they rode over an improvised explosive device (IED) on the Damboa-Maiduguri highway in Borno State on Saturday, February 12.<\/p>\n
RNI reporter Alkali Mustapha spoke to another driver, Mustapha Modube, who said: \u2018\u2019The driver was riding down the highway when the truck hit an IED. It immediately detonated, killing the driver and his conductor. A passenger was wounded and is being treated in hospital.\u201d<\/p>\n
The highway has been closed for two years because of frequent attacks by insurgents. But drivers still use it, sometimes escorted by troops.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2019Early in the morning, drivers and passengers gather at the Kala Motor Park on the outskirts of Damboa. They wait for other drivers from the nearby towns of Chibok, Askira-Uba and Mubi to join them and for troops to escort them to Maiduguri,\u2019\u2019 Modube said.<\/p>\n
But, he said, the recent frequency of IED explosions had created \u201ca nightmare\u201d for drivers who often use the highway even though it is supposed to be closed to traffic.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe depend on the highway to transport passengers. It is our only means to make a living. But these recent explosions have made it a life and death risk. They are huge problem for all of us drivers,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
A similar incident occurred on Thursday, February 10, on the outskirts of Dikwa. A man was looking for firewood when he came across and unusual object covered by sand. He hit the object, which turned out to be an IED, repeatedly with a stick. It detonated and the man was blown to pieces.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/strong>AISHA JAMAL<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The driver of a pick-up truck and his conductor were killed, and one passenger wounded, when they rode over an improvised explosive device (IED) on the Damboa-Maiduguri highway in Borno […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":16824,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21417","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ndarason.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21417"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ndarason.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ndarason.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ndarason.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ndarason.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21417"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ndarason.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21417\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ndarason.com\/en\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ndarason.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ndarason.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ndarason.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}