Bomb blasts near Nigeria capital
October 3, 2015
The bombs were set off late on Friday evening on the outskirts of the capital, Abuja, in Kuje and Nyanya.
No group made an immediate claim of responsibility.
A spokesman for the National Emergency Management Agency, Manzo Ezekiel, said the bomb in Kuje, 40 kilometers (25 miles) from Abuja, went off near a police station. The one in Nyanya was set off in a crowded area at a bus stop not far from the site of two blasts in April and May last year (photo) which killed 90 people. The two bombs went off "almost simultaneously," according to Ezekiel.
"There are a number of dead but we can't say anything about numbers now," the spokesman added.
Before last year's attacks, there had not been bomb blasts in the capital for two years.
The bombs appeared to be "the same kind of explosives used in the insurgency" in Borno state in north east Nigeria, Ezekiel added. The terror group Boko Haram began its insurgency in the capital of the state Maiduguri six years ago.
A military offensive directed by the new government of former General Muhammadu Buhari has deprived Boko Haram of some of its supply chains and territory in the north east.
jm/jr (Reuters, LUSA)