Nigeria Blast Kills at Least 19 in Abuja

Updated 4:50 p.m. ET on May 2

An explosion killed at least 19 people in Nigeria’s capital city of Abuja on Thursday, a hospital worker told the Associated Press.

The apparent car bomb blew up near the site of an April 14 bombing that killed at least 75 people and wounded 141, according to officials. The Boko Haram Islamic extremist network claimed responsibility for that bombing, and just hours later, militants kidnapped over 250 teenage girls at a school in the northeast. Fifty of the students escaped from their captors, but 200 of the girls are still missing. (Boko Haram means “Western education is sinful.”)

A checkpoint was set up at the location after the April 14 blast. According to witnesses, traffic had built up before the checkpoint before the bomb exploded on Thursday. Earlier in the day at a May Day rally, President Goodluck Jonathan said the perpetrators of the bombing and kidnapping would be brought to justice.

Civil Defense Corps spokesman Eman Ekah said rescuers are at the scene.

[AP]

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