Nigeria violence: 'Seventy killed' in Abuja bus blasts

[muriel_volestrangler]

Last edited Mon Apr 14, 2014, 08:17 AM - Edit history (1)

Source: BBC

More than 70 people have been killed in two blasts that rocked a crowded bus station on the outskirts of Nigeria's capital, Abuja, an official says.

The blast happened as commuters were about to board buses and taxis to go to work in central Abuja, the BBC's Haruna Tangaza reports.
...
Eyewitness Badamasi Nyanya said he had seen 40 bodies being evacuated; other eyewitnesses say they saw rescue workers and police gathering body parts.

The blast ripped a hole four feet deep (1.2 metre) in the ground of Nyanya Motor Park, some 16km (10 miles) from the city centre, and destroyed more than 30 vehicles, causing secondary explosions as their fuel tanks ignited and burned, the Associated Press news agency reports.

Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-27018751

[Nanjing to Seoul]

1. Boko Haram?

[muriel_volestrangler]

2. Quite likely, though they don't hit in the capital so often

eg another 98 killed in the past 24 hours: http://allafrica.com/stories/201404141070.html
and 135 a few days before that: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-27006876

[Nanjing to Seoul]

3. and yet they roam with no stopping them and the people they kill do nothing about it.

by they time they are done, there will be no one left. over 300 in three days.

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. Far from that - states of emergency, many killed by government forces too

An increase in attacks by Boko Haram and uncontrolled reprisals by Nigeria’s security forces has seen the death toll in North East Nigeria rise to at least 1,500 people, more than half of whom are civilians, in the first three months of 2014, Amnesty International said in a briefing published today.
...
More than half of the killings have been carried out by members of the Islamist armed group Boko Haram, including scores of schoolchildren who have been the victims of deliberate attacks.

Amnesty International has documented the killings carried out in January, February and March 2014 by both Boko Haram and the Nigerian Security Forces. It highlights 14 March as a tipping point when the security forces unleashed a brutal crackdown on former detainees.

On 14 March Boko Haram gunmen attacked the Giwa military barracks in Maiduguri, Borno state. They reportedly fought their way into the detention facilities and freed several hundred detainees. Amnesty International has received credible evidence that as the military regained control, more than 600 people, mostly unarmed recaptured detainees, were extra-judicially executed in various locations across Maiduguri.

https://www.amnesty.org/en/news/nigeria-war-crimes-and-crimes-against-humanity-violence-escalates-north-east-2014-03-31

President Goodluck Jonathan declared a state of emergency in Borno and two other states in May, giving the military extra powers to curb the four-year insurgency.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-26418161