Bombings in Nigeria claim at least 118 lives_美文

Bombings in Nigeria claim at least 118 lives

A Reuters reporter saw 10 bodies burned beyond recognition at the bomb site opposite a hospital at Terminus, the downtown area of Jos which houses shops, some offices and a market.

"We've now recovered 118 bodies from the rubble," said Mohammed Abdulsalam, coordinator of the National Emergency Management Agency in Jos. "This could rise by morning, as there is still some rubble we haven't yet shifted."

"The first explosive went off around 3 pm. The second was about3:30, while people gathered to help the victims," he said by telephone. "This is a very busy area of the Jos metropolis."

The back-to-back blast tactic, meant to maximize civilian casualties, has also been used by militants in Iraq and other places.

Jos has been relatively free of attacks by Boko Haram, but the group claimed responsibility for a bomb in a church in the highland city, as well as two other places, on Christmas Day 2011.

The city is in the heart of Nigeria's volatile Middle Belt, where its largely Christian south and mostly Muslim north meet, and the surrounding Plateau state is often a flashpoint for violence, although the Christmas bombing failed to trigger more.

But in a sign it could, a mob of Christian youths armed with clubs advanced toward a Muslim part of Jos before police held them back, police spokeswoman Felicia Anselm said by telephone.

On Wednesday, details emerged of two attacks by Boko Haram gunmen that killed 30 people near Chibok, the northeast Nigerian town where the Islamists kidnapped more than 200 schoolgirls last month.