Suicide bombers attacked a bus station in the northern city of Kano on Monday.
After a short lull, suicide bombers struck a bus station in Kano, the Kano State capital in northern Nigeria on Monday, March 18, 2013, leaving at least 20 people dead and scores injured, Thisday newspaper reported. Reacting to the blasts, President Goodluck Jonathan vowed that his government will not be stampeded into abandoning its unrelenting war against terrorists in the country.
Although official figures of those killed in the serial explosions that occurred at New Road in the densely populated Sabon Gari area were not immediately available, other sources put the death toll at between 25 and 60. The explosions occurred at about 4.45 pm during the peak period, targeting a motor park widely patronised by South Nigeria-bound passengers. It was gathered that the bombers hit a Lagos-bound 59-seater luxury bus, blowing it up as it was departing the motor park.
Other explosions were also heard within the vicinity of the motor park. While some sources claimed that the bombs might have been concealed in luggage loaded on the bus, others said the suicide bombers had positioned a Volkswagen Golf car packed with explosives between two luxury buses. They are then said to have detonated the explosives immediately the driver of one of the buses was about to take off.
Nigerian Tribune newspaper said at least 10 other vehicles and about 20 shops were burnt in the ensuing inferno. A witness said that a rescue team comprising mostly security operatives and men of the Fire Service managed to retrieve about 20 charred bodies when the fire was partially brought under control. Scores of friends and relations of those trapped in the inferno as well as other concerned residents wailed and gnashed their teeth as the rescue team made further attempts to trace the remains of other passengers.
No group has said it was behind the blasts, but Islamist militants from the Boko Haram group have attacked Kano in the past, BBC recalled. It is the largest city in the mainly Moslem north of Nigeria. In January 2012, about 185 people died in the metropolis in a series of coordinated attacks by Boko Haram. Another militant Islamist organisation, Ansaru, said it killed seven foreign construction workers in northern Bauchi State in February.
