Message: there will be no mercy till you folks submit to our sword.
Twin
blasts on Monday at a bus station on the outskirts of Nigeria’s capital
crammed with morning commuters killed 71 people and injured 124 others,
police said.
The attack appeared to be the latest attack by Boko Haram Islamists.
The explosions rocked the Nyanya station roughly five kilometres (three
miles) south of Abuja at 6.45am (0545 GMT) and destroyed some 30
vehicles, mostly large passenger buses, officials and an AFP reporter
said.
The head of search and rescue operations at the Nigeria’s
National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Charles Otegbade, said one
of the blasts “emanated from a vehicle” within the station but the
precise nature of the explosion was not immediately clear.
No
group has yet claimed the apparent attack, but suspicion is likely to
fall on Boko Haram, an insurgent group blamed for killing thousands
across northern and central Nigeria since 2009.
The Islamists
have attacked Nigeria’s capital in the past, most prominently in a 2011
car bombing at the UN headquarters in the city that killed at least 26
people.
The explosions left a hole roughly four feet (1.2
metres) deep and scattered personal items as well as human flesh across
the compound, an AFP reporter and witnesses said.
“I saw bodies
taken away in open trucks,” said witness Yakubu Mohammed. “It is
difficult to count them because the bodies were burnt and in pieces.”
….
regards
