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| Scene of the Kano blast |
SHOWBIZPLUSng checks revealed that the blast
which hit Kano on Sunday, in a street with many bars and night spots, has
further heighten fears and tensions among residents of the city, especially
Christians.
Scores were feared dead in the explosion which
eyewitnesses quoted by the AFP news agency said was caused by a suspected car
bomb.
The blast took place in an area mostly inhabited
by Christians from southern Nigeria, the Reuters news agency reports.
The militant Islamist group Boko Haram has
carried out attacks in Kano State.
Witnesses quoted by AFP said that the
blast could be heard from several miles away and happened on a busy road lined
with bars in the predominantly Christian area of Sabon Gari.
The blast comes as the Nigerian authorities
continue the search for more than 200 schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram.
Kano police spokesman, Musa Majiya, said it was
too early to say if the blast in the Sabon Gari or “foreign quarter” of the
North’s biggest city had caused any casualties.
But witness Abdul Dafar, who lives a block away,
told Reuters he saw at least four dead bodies after the explosion.
“I heard a loud blast. And there was a lot of
smoke. Soldiers came in to cordon off the place and ambulances were rushing
people to hospital,” he said.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility,
but blame is likely to fall on Boko Haram, whose struggle against the Nigerian
state has killed at least 12,000 in the last five years.
The militants also operate in neighbouring Niger,
Cameroon and Chad, and President Goodluck Jonathan described them as West
Africa’s Al-Qaeda on Saturday in Paris, where regional leaders met France’s
President Francois Hollande to discuss how to tackle the growing threat posed
by the group.
The Islamists grabbed world headlines with
abduction of more than 200 schoolgirls a month ago from a remote village in the
North-East. Britain, the United States and France have pledged to help rescue
them.
Boko Haram has frequently attacked Sabon Gari,
whose liquor stores are also a cause of friction with Kano’s Islamic police.
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