7/30/2013 Nigeria (USA Today) — Multiple explosions at a bar and entertainment area in a Christian quarter of Nigeria's northern and mainly Muslim city of Kano killed at least 24 people, a hospital official said Tuesday.
Lt. Ikedichi Iweha, a spokesman for the Military Joint Task Force, said earlier Tuesday that 12 people died at the scene and "a couple" of people were wounded in Monday night's attack, which he blamed on suspected members of the Islamic extremist Boko Haram network.
But the spokesman for Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital said their mortuary had 24 bodies brought from the scene and from the city's Murtala Muhammad Specialists Hospital.
The teaching hospital also was treating nine people wounded in the blasts, said spokesman Aminu Inuwa. It was unclear how many others might be in treatment at other hospitals.
More than a hundred people gathered outside the hospital morgue, weeping and screaming in anguish Tuesday afternoon. Military officials would not allow them into the morgue, so many said they have no idea if missing loved ones are dead or alive.
Nigeria is fighting an Islamic uprising by extremists based mainly in the northeast, where the government has declared a state of emergency. Kano city and state are in the northwest and not part of that emergency. Boko Haram, which means "Western education is forbidden," wants to impose Islamic law in all of Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation of more than 160 million divided almost equally between Christians who live mainly in the south and Muslims who dominate the north(Source).
Lt. Ikedichi Iweha, a spokesman for the Military Joint Task Force, said earlier Tuesday that 12 people died at the scene and "a couple" of people were wounded in Monday night's attack, which he blamed on suspected members of the Islamic extremist Boko Haram network.
But the spokesman for Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital said their mortuary had 24 bodies brought from the scene and from the city's Murtala Muhammad Specialists Hospital.
The teaching hospital also was treating nine people wounded in the blasts, said spokesman Aminu Inuwa. It was unclear how many others might be in treatment at other hospitals.
More than a hundred people gathered outside the hospital morgue, weeping and screaming in anguish Tuesday afternoon. Military officials would not allow them into the morgue, so many said they have no idea if missing loved ones are dead or alive.
Nigeria is fighting an Islamic uprising by extremists based mainly in the northeast, where the government has declared a state of emergency. Kano city and state are in the northwest and not part of that emergency. Boko Haram, which means "Western education is forbidden," wants to impose Islamic law in all of Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation of more than 160 million divided almost equally between Christians who live mainly in the south and Muslims who dominate the north(Source).
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