A young child detonated a bomb strapped to her body in a suspected Boko Haram attack, killing herself and wounding others. A second suicide bomber was cornered and lynched by an angry crowd before she could denote her device.

The incident happened on New Year's Eve in the northeastern Nigerian city of Maiduguri, aid workers told AFP.

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One person suffered serious injuries in the bomb blast at a busy food market where people had been queuing up to buy noodles at around 9.30pm.

No-one has yet claimed responsibility for the attack but some experts believe it is very similar in execution to Boko Haram militants who frequently use young girl suicide bombers in Maiduguri.

Grema Usman, a witness, told France24: "The girl walked towards the crowd but she blew up before she could reach her target.

"She died instantly, while one person was seriously hurt after he was hit by shrapnel."

An aid worker said: "The girl was clearly not more than 10 and this could have made her too nervous, making her detonate the explosives prematurely."

Victor Isuku, Borno state police spokesman, said a furious mob caught and killed a second female suicide bomber, whose explosive device was then detonated by security forces.

This latest attack comes a week after Muhammadu Buhari said that Boko Haram had been forced out of Sambisa forest, in what he called the "final crushing" of the Islamist group's last stronghold in Borno state.

However, in response Abubakar Shekau, Boko Haram's leader released a video on 29 December saying: "We are safe. We have not been flushed out of anywhere. And tactics and strategies cannot reveal our location except if Allah wills by his decree."

One in every five "suicide bombers" used by Boko Haram over the past two years has been a child, according to a Unicef report. Around 75% of these are girls, who are used because they will create less suspicion and with less likelihood of being searched.

"The use of children, especially girls, as so-called suicide bombers has become a defining and alarming feature of this conflict," Laurent Duvillier, regional spokesman for Unicef, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

"It's basically turning the children against their own communities by strapping bombs around their bodies," he said.

Boko Haram's seven-year bloody campaign to turn northeastern Nigeria into an Islamic caliphate has killed 20,000 people and displaced 2.6 million others.