LAGOS

 Nigerian police have said at least six people – including two female suicide bombers – were killed when multiple blasts rocked a crowded textile market in the northern city of Kano on Wednesday.

"Six people died. Of these, two are female suicide bombers," Kano police spokesman Magaji Majiya told The Anadolu Agency.

He said seven others were injured by the bombings, which residents said occurred at a crowded motor park inside Kano's boisterous Kwari textile market.

The official death toll, however, remains far below the figures given by hospital sources and local residents.

"We have no fewer than 17 bodies here now, but it seems more are coming," a nurse at the Nasarawa General Hospital told AA on condition of anonymity.

"Our facilities are stretched, but we're still coping," she said.

Musa Samari, a local trader, said at least 20 bodies had been taken to hospital.

"People – dead bodies – were piled on top of each other in a backless van and taken to hospital," he told AA.

The bombings come two weeks after multiple blasts at Kano's central mosque claimed at least 50 lives, according to Nigeria's National Emergency Management Agency.

The mosque attack was widely blamed on the Boko Haram militant group.

Nigeria continues to battle a five-year Boko Haram insurgency in the country's northeastern region, where more than 13,000 people – mostly civilians – have been killed and the local economy crippled.

An emboldened Boko Haram has recently stepped up its activity, seizing several areas across Adamawa, Borno and Yobe – the three states worst hit by the insurgency – declaring the captured territories to be part of a self-styled "Islamic caliphate."

The group, which first emerged in the early 2000s preaching against government misrule and corruption, became violent after the death of its leader in 2009 while in police custody.

Along with Nigeria, Boko Haram has also been officially outlawed in Turkey and the United States.

www.aa.com.tr/en