By SaharaReporters, New York/NAN

No fewer than 15 people were injured in an explosion that occurred at a hotel located on the outskirts of Gombe township in northeastern Nigeria .

The manager of the hotel, Mr Ojiego Nelson,told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Gombe on Thursday that three persons came to the hotel at about 10.13 PM on Wednesday to explode a device.

Nelson said that he was at the gate of the hotel when the men, who were carrying guns, started “manhandling” the security man and when he asked what was happening, they started shooting sporadically.


``Our customers and everybody started running helter-skelter and the one with two gas cylinders in his hands threw them into our reception area." ``He threw one into the reception and threw the other one under the cars parked by our guests in the hotel. The one thrown into the reception exploded and damaged the building, so we just managed to escape through the back fence,'' he said.

The manager said that as soon as the incident happened, all the customers vacated their rooms in the hotel and left. He said the incident was immediately reported to the Divisional Police Officer in Tumfure, Mr Hassan Bappa, who came to the scene with his men. Bappa later claimed he deployed his men to the scene of the incident when the matter was reported to him, but that it was unfortunate that the gun men had escaped before police arrived. Bappa said that there was no fatalities and nothing was stolen from the hotel. ``We are waiting for bomb experts to come and remove the relics at the scene of the incident,” he said.

He said there was no arrest made so far but investigations were continuing.

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