Nigeria: Northern Bombing Highlights Toll On Residents

press release

Abuja — The bomb blast in the Borno State capital, Maiduguri, on January 14, 2014, illuminates the price citizens are paying in the intensifying unrest in northern Nigeria, Human Rights Watch said today. The bombing, which appears to have been directed at local residents by the Islamist insurgent movement, Boko Haram, is an assault on the basic tenet of the right to life. It killed about 40 people and wounded 50.

The car bomb went off at about 1:30 p.m. in a busy commercial area known as the GSM Market, near the state television offices and Maiduguri post office. There appeared to be no clear target beyond the people out on what was apublic holiday in Nigeria to mark the Prophet Mohamed's birthday. Witnesses quoted by international and local media said that at least 40 bodies were brought to the morgue at a local hospital. Another 50 people were injured, and numerous vehicles and market stalls were destroyed. The victims included roadside and ambulatory vendors, parents and their children, motorists, and a police traffic warden.

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