Many feared dead as two blasts hit Abuja

Boko Haram bomb explosion

Boko Haram bomb explosionTwo bomb blasts have rocked two Abuja satellite towns, with casualties reported, officials say.

The first struck near a police station in Kuje, 25 miles (40km) from Abuja, the second hit a bus stop in Nyanya.

One official said 10 people had been “critically injured”. However, an official quoted by AFP news agency reports “a number of dead”.

While Islamist group Boko Haram has attacked Abuja before, its insurgency has mostly focused on the north-east.

Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state, is where the militants first based its campaign to carve out an Islamist state in 2009.

Friday’s explosions in two suburbs of Abuja happened “almost simultaneously” at about 22:30 (21:30 GMT), a spokesman for the National Emergency Management Agency told AFP.

“There are a number of dead but we can’t say anything about numbers now,” Manzo Ezekiel said.

The explosives, he continued, appeared to be “the same kind of explosives used in the insurgency” in the north-east. NEMA said in the statement: it further stated: “National Emergency Management Agency has deployed its rescue teams in the evacuation of the victims to various hospitals. The explosions which occurred almost simultaneously have resulted in a number of deaths and injuries but the rescue operations coordinated by NEMA is still ongoing.

A bus station in Nyanya was struck by two blasts last year, killing 90 people

Two separate attacks at a bus station in Nyanya killed 90 people last year.