Abuja attack: Car bomb hits Nigeria UN building Skip to main content

Abuja attack: Car bomb hits Nigeria UN building

A car bomb attack has struck the UN building in the Nigerian capital Abuja, killing at least three people.
The powerful blast wrecked the bottom floor of the building. Three are confirmed dead at a local hospital and 60 are injured, some critically.
A UN official in Nigeria, who spoke to the BBC on condition of anonymity, said the UN had received information last month that it could be targeted by Islamist group Boko Haram.
Security was stepped up in response.
A car bombing at police headquarters in June was blamed on Boko Haram, a group which wants the establishment of Sharia law in Nigeria.
There has been no claim of responsibility for Friday's attack, but government officials have blamed "terrorists" for the bombing, says the BBC's Bashir Sa'ad Abdullahi, who is at the site of the explosion.
Witnesses said the blast happened after a car rammed the front of the building after crashing through two security barriers.
Nigeria's Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Viola Onwuliri, told the BBC she had visited the building and seen "the shock on people's faces".
"This is not an attack on Nigeria but on the global community," she said. "An attack on the world."
The building is the UN's main office in Nigeria, where all its agencies are based, the unnamed UN official told the BBC.
The official said security had been increased at all UN offices in Nigeria following the intelligence warning of a possible attack.
'Scattered bodies' Friday's attack took place at about 1100 local time (1000 GMT) in the diplomatic zone in the centre of the city, close to the US embassy.
Scene of Friday's bomb blast at the UN building in the Nigerian capital Abuja (pic courtesy SaharaReporters.com) There has been no claim of responsibility so far
There was a loud explosion and smoke billowed from the building following Friday's powerful blast, which shattered all the glass in the building.
Our correspondent said the ground floor of the building was badly damaged and he saw the emergency services removing dead bodies from the building while a number of wounded were rushed to hospital.
"I saw scattered bodies," Michael Ofilaje, a Unicef worker at the building, said according to the Associated Press news agency (AP).
"Many people are dead."
He said it felt like "the blast came from the basement and shook the building".
Local hospitals are said to be overwhelmed with the number of injured and have appealed for blood donations.
Police have sealed off the area.
"We have deployed our policemen and anti-bomb squad. We can't establish how many casualties [there are]," an Abuja police spokesman said according to AP.
Graphic 
 
 
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-14677957
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Chronology of the Press in Burma

1836 – 1846 * During this period the first English-language newspaper was launched under British-ruled Tenasserim, southern  Burma . The first ethnic Karen-language and Burmese-language newspapers also appear in this period.     March 3, 1836 —The first English-language newspaper,  The Maulmain Chronicle , appears in the city of Moulmein in British-ruled Tenasserim. The paper, first published by a British official named E.A. Blundell, continued up until the 1950s. September 1842 —Tavoy’s  Hsa-tu-gaw  (the  Morning Star ), a monthly publication in the Karen-language of  Sgaw ,  is established by the Baptist mission. It is the first ethnic language newspaper. Circulation reached about three hundred until its publication ceased in 1849. January 1843 —The Baptist mission publishes a monthly newspaper, the Christian  Dhamma  Thadinsa  (the  Religious Herald ), in Moulmein. Supposedly the first Burmese-language newspaper, it continued up until the first year of the second Angl
Post a Comment
Read more

ARSA claims ambush on Myanmar security forces

Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) on Sunday claimed responsibility for an ambush on Myanmar security forces that left several wounded in northern Rakhine state, the first attack in weeks in a region gutted by violence. Rakhine was plunged into turmoil last August, when a series of ARSA raids prompted a military backlash so brutal the UN says it likely amounts to ethnic cleansing of the Muslim Rohingya minority. The army campaign sent some 650,000 Rohingya fleeing for Bangladesh, where refugees have given harrowing accounts of rape, murder and arson at the hands of security forces and vigilantes. Myanmar's military, which tightly controls information about Rakhine, denies any abuses and insists the crackdown was a proportionate response to crush the "terrorist" threat. ARSA have launched few attacks in recent months.  But the army reported that "about ten" Rohingya terrorists ambushed a car with hand-made mines and gunfire on Friday morning
Post a Comment
Read more

Thai penis whitening trend raises eyebrows

Image copyright LELUXHOSPITAL Image caption Authorities warn the procedure could be quite painful A supposed trend of penis whitening has captivated Thailand in recent days and left it asking if the country's beauty industry is taking things too far. Skin whitening is nothing new in many Asian countries, where darker skin is often associated with outdoor labour, therefore, being poorer. But even so, when a clip of a clinic's latest intriguing procedure was posted online, it quickly went viral. Thailand's health ministry has since issued a warning over the procedure. The BBC Thai service spoke to one patient who had undergone the treatment, who told them: "I wanted to feel more confident in my swimming briefs". The 30-year-old said his first session of several was two months ago, and he had since seen a definite change in the shade. 'What for?' The original Facebook post from the clinic offering the treatment, which uses lasers to break do
1 comment
Read more