LAGOS, Nigeria: An explosion near a state TV studio in eastern Nigeria’s Taraba state killed a woman and wounded five children overnight, the emergency services said yesterday.

It was the second blast in the remote town of Jalingo, in Nigeria’s volatile ethnically and religiously mixed Middle Belt, in two days. A blast at an outdoor saloon there killed at least one person and wounded 14 on Thursday.

There was no claim of responsibility for either blast, although suspicion is likely to fall on Boko Haram militant group, which is waging a low level insurgency against President Goodluck Jonathan’s government.

The insurgents want to carve a separate state out of Nigeria, a country of 160 million people split about evenly between Christians and Muslims.

They have been blamed for many hundreds of deaths in bombings or shootings and are seen as the number one security threat to Africa’s top energy producer.

“After the last Thursday’s explosion, which left one dead and 14 injured, another explosion occurred last night Friday near an NTA station,” National Emergency Management Agency spokesman Yushua Shuaib said by text message.

“A woman was killed, and five kids injured. The victims were evacuated to (hospital),” he added.