Big News Network.com Thursday 26th June, 2014
ABUJA, Nigeria - At least 21 people were killed and dozens injured in an explosion that rocked a parking space at a crowded plaza in Abuja, the capital of restive Nigeria, authorities said Thursday.
The bombing occurred at the Emab Plaza mall in the upscale Wuse 2 neighborhood late Wednesday.
Officials said they counted 21 bodies at the site of the blast while as at least 52 wounded were being treated at five hospitals. Among the dead were street vendors from the nearby area.
Some 40 vehicles were destroyed in the bombing, said Ezekiel Manzo, spokesman for Nigeria's National Emergency Management Agency.
Police officials said that the explosive device was hidden in the parking lot at the entrance of the shopping mall.
"Our most important assignment now is to secure lives, secure the crime scene," police spokesman Frank Mba said at the explosion site.
The blast follows two bomb attacks that killed at least 120 people in Abuja earlier this year. Both the earlier attacks were in the neighborhood of Nyanya, on the outskirts of the city.
No group has claimed responsibility for the latest attack.
However, officials said they were suspecting Boko Haram, the group of Islamists fighting for creation of an Islamic state in Nigeria.
Boko Haram opposes Western education, culture and democracy.
The police spokesman said that they had arrested a suspect while another suspect was shot dead by troops as he tried to escape on a motorbike.
Eyewitnesses recalled the horror outside the mall.
Oreoluwa Adeoye who sells phone accessories at the nearby plaza was quoted as saying by the AFP: "I saw many dead bodies. Some were taxi drivers parked at the spot of the explosion waiting for passengers. Some drivers perished there with their passengers."
Shuaibu Adamu Baba, an education consultant who said he lost his driver in the blast, recalled the "terrible" scenes at the blast site.
"There are a lot of human bodies shattered... They are in pieces. The security agencies have been picking human bodies (parts) in nylon bags," he said. "I lost a driver who has three wives and eight children."
The insurgency has turned the country's north into a war zone and killed some 12,000 people since 2009.
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