Boko Haram kills scores in Abuja motor park bombing

Abuja motor park blast

More than 200 people are feared dead in an explosion which rocked an outskirts of Abuja, the Nigerian capital, this morning.

The explosion sounded in a highly populated motor park in Nyanya, less than five minutes drive from the Abuja city Centre.

It is not clear yet how the bomb was ferried into the park, but witnesses suspect it was planted by a suicide bomber.

Several dead bodies now litter the blood spattered park and the expressway leading to the city.

Some of the dead victims and the injured are being taken to hospital by ambulances and vans belonging to the police, the Vehicle Inspection Office, Federal Road Safety Commission, the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps and the National Emergency Management Agency.

 

Our reporter counted more than 50 bodies that were yet to be evacuated. But witnesses said more than 150 bodies may have been moved before our reporter’s arrival.

Some of the bodies are mangled beyond recognition.

Several vehicles, including about 12 government-owned high capacity buses operated by the Abuja Mass Transit Company Limited, were destroyed in the attack.

Some of the buses were said to be loaded with passengers when the explosion occurred.

Workers on their way to their workplaces were most affected.

An eyewitness, who survived with a deep cut in his right leg, told our correspondent that the explosion occurred while he was calling passengers into his car.

He claimed that human flesh littered his car and others around it.

A combined team of security agencies and firefighters are currently retrieving bodies and putting out fire at the scene.

The incident had led to disruption of movement into Abuja from that area with many workers, who were on their ways to work, stranded.

The loud sound and thick smoke that characterised the explosion attracted people to the scene from neighbouring areas such as Karu, Mararaba and Masaka among others.

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