Teenage girl is beaten to death then set on fire by crowd

Police officers said a second suspected teenage girl was also accused of being a suicide bomber and was arrested at the Muda Lawal market, the biggest market in Bauchi city in north east Nigeria.

A yam vendor said people discovered one of the girls had two bottles strapped to her body so they clubbed her to death, put a tyre doused in fuel over her head and set it on fire.

Market trader Mohd Adamu said the girls refused to be searched at the gate of the vegetable market, arousing suspicion from the people who attacked them.

But police spokesman Mohammad Haruna said it seemed doubtful the girl was a bomber and described her as the victim of 'mob action carried out by an irate crowd'. 

A spate of such attacks has been blamed on Nigeria's homegrown Boko Haram extremist group, which wants to enforce strict Islamic law across Nigeria. 

Last year the terror group kidnapped hundreds of schoolgirls from the town of Chibok - sparking fears they are being used to carry out the suicide bombings.

The group has increased the number of suicide attacks over the last year, particularly those involving girls and women.

Recently girls as young as 10 have been used to carry explosives which were then detonated in busy markets and bus stations.

It is unclear whether the girls detonate explosions themselves or whether the bombs are controlled remotely.

President Goodluck Jonathan last week condemned Boko Haram for choosing soft targets and said the series of bombings are a response to the Nigerian military's recent success in seizing back towns that had been in the hands of the extremists for months.  

The group has threatened to disrupt Nigeria's March 28 presidential and legislative elections, saying democracy 'is a corrupt Western concept'. 

Several thousand people took to the streets of Cameroon's capital yesterday to denounce Boko Haram's bloody insurgency and to call for the killing of the group's leader Abubakar Shekau.

'This march symbolises Cameroon's unity against Boko Haram,' the country's Labour Minister Gregoire Owona told marchers in Yaounde, before shouting 'Shekau!'

In response, the crowd of 15,000, chanted: 'You are dead, you are a coward.'

Over the past seven months Cameroonian soldiers have been battling the Nigerian Islamists, which are now locked in a regional fight that also includes soldiers from Nigeria and Chad.

Boko Haram's six-year insurgency, which has left 13,000 dead and forced over a million from their homes, has increasingly spilled over into neighbouring nations.

Several ministers led the vocal, but peaceful march, which saw protesters waving the flags of Cameroon, Chad and Nigeria.

(dailymail.co.uk)