'Dozens' killed in Nyanya, Abuja bombing, says NEMA

Twin blasts at a packed bus station in Nigeria’s
capital killed “dozens of people” on Monday, a
spokesman for the state-run emergency services
said.

“It’s correct to say dozens of people were killed
following the bomb blasts in Nyanya Bus Park this
morning,” Manzo Ezekiel of the National Emergency
Management Agency (NEMA) has said.
The cause of the explosions at the Nyanya Bus Park
roughly five kilometres (three miles) south of Abuja
was not immediately clear.
The city has been attacked previously by Boko
Haram insurgents, who say they are fighting to
create a strict Islamic state in northern Nigeria.
“We have been able to bring some of the dead to the
morgue and some injured have been taken to the
hospital,” said Charles Otegbade, head of search
and rescue at the National Emergency Management
Agency (NEMA).
He said his team had not yet been able to provide
precise figures on casualties.
An AFP reporter at the scene said there were signs
of a major explosion, with the remnants of charred
vehicles scattered in the area.
Some of the small shops at the station had been
damaged or destroyed.
NEMA spokesman Manzo Ezekiel told AFP that the
Nyanya station was crowded with people on their
way to work in Abuja when the explosions rang out
and that witnesses reported hearing two separate
blasts.
Security officials at the scene were working to
determine the cause of the explosions.
Boko Haram is blamed for scores of attacks across
northern and central Nigeria that have killed
thousands since 2009.
In 2011 it carried out a suicide car bombing at a
United Nations building in Abuja that killed at least
26 people, one of its most prominent attacks.
Most of the group’s recent violence, however, has
been in the remote northeast of the country.
An attack on the outskirts of Abuja would cast
further doubt on the military’s claim that the
insurgents have been weakened and lack the
capacity to strike prominent targets.
Boko Haram attacks have already killed more than
1,500 people this year, according to Amnesty
International.
The Islamists rebels stormed a northeastern village
on the border with Cameroon early Sunday, killing at
least 60 people with heavy weapons and

explosives, a local official said.