CHAOS IN NIGERIA (The Guardian) At least 118 people were killed in the central Nigerian city of Jos on Tuesday after two bombs ripped through a business district packed with commuters and traders. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the explosions, but the bombs bore the hallmarks of other attacks by Islamist sect Boko Haram, which has recently stepped up a bloody five-year battle campaign to establish a caliphate in northern Nigeria, and kidnapped more than 300 schoolgirls from a remote north- eastern school in April. In the past month, the group has set off two bomb blasts in the capital, Abuja, and another in the countrys second city, Kano. Abdulsalam Mohd, of Nigerias national emergency management agency, said ambulances and volunteers were ferrying wounded and dead from Terminus, an area home to a teaching hospital, shops, offices and a market. He said the death toll was likely to climb as victims were still being pulled from smouldering rubble at the scene. It happened very close to the market so most of the victims were people plying their trade. Some had children with them, he said by phone from the scene, above the wail of sirens. The casualty figure is likely to rise because the fire service wasnt able to clear all the rubble today. They will continue to remove the debris tomorrow and we are expecting to recover more bodies then, he added. That could push the death toll close to Boko Harams single biggest atrocity yet, a multiple-bomb attack in Kano which killed 170 in January 2012 . The attack suggests that the group, which started with hit-and- run home-made explosives thrown from motorbikes, is seeking to make a show of its capabilities before the elections scheduled in 2015.
Posted on: Wed, 21 May 2014 03:22:23 +0000
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