Nigeria Blasts Death Toll Tops 1,000
By GLENN McKENZIE
Associated Press Writer
February 2, 2002, 3:57 PM EST
LAGOS, Nigeria -- A week after massive explosions ripped though Lagos
neighborhoods, officials on Saturday revealed the extent of the disaster:
more than 1,000 people had died, mainly children who drowned in a canal as
they fled in panic.
The new death toll -- 400 more than previously estimated -- was announced as
the Nigerian Red Cross suspended its aid operations after military officials
ordered the organization to hand over its relief supplies.
Home Affairs Commissioner Musiliu Obanikoro said the casualty count came
after rescue efforts uncovered more bodies from a canal where hundreds of
victims, many of them women and children, had drowned.
"From everything I have seen, as more bodies have been found over the days,
the number of people who are deceased is now over 1,000 people," he said.
Obanikoro, speaking on the private Lagos radio station Rhythm 93.7 FM, said
the search for more victims was tapering off. Lagos State Information
Commissioner Dele Alake said authorities believed the latest toll was "close
to" a final tally.
More than 700 bodies have been brought to mortuaries and the remaining 300
were claimed by individuals for private burials, Alake said.
Thousands fled last Sunday night after a chain of explosions erupted at an
army base in the northern Ikeja neighborhood in Nigeria's crowded commercial
capital.
The blasts lasted for hours, propelling shells and flaming debris for miles.
Officials are still investigating the cause of the explosions.
Families of the victims have directed their anger at Nigeria's military for
storing munitions in a heavily populated area. The army has promised to
investigate, but many political leaders blame the military and are calling
for an independent inquiry.
Nigerian authorities were planning a mass burial, possibly for Monday or
Tuesday, for many of the unclaimed bodies. Dozens of decomposing corpses
could be seen Saturday at the Ikeja hospital mortuary, where a few families
waited outside for permission to remove the remains of loved ones.
Alake said a few bodies were still being recovered Saturday from the Oke Afa
canal, where hundreds drowned. Navy patrol teams have begun searching other
waterways.
Red Cross spokesman Patrick Bawa, meanwhile, said the organization suspended
its aid operations on Saturday and locked up all its food and other
provisions, which were stored inside the Ikeja army base.
Its efforts to reunite families with hundreds still missing were also
temporarily stopped, Bawa said.
The moves came after the army ordered the Red Cross to hand over all
supplies, Bawa said, adding the agency was bound by its convention to
refuse.
An announcer on the private Super Screen television station said station
officials had been blocked by soldiers from delivering aid donated by
viewers.
Military officials had no immediate comment.
Bawa said the army's latest demands did not appear to be linked to a fire
that destroyed a Red Cross warehouse on Friday.
The warehouse, located inside an army base in Yaba and about five miles from
the one at Ikeja, contained blankets and other nonfood relief supplies worth
$330,000. It wasn't clear what caused the blaze. No casualties were
reported, Nigerian Red Cross President Emmanuel Ijewere said.
The Red Cross has reunited 1,800 children with their parents and has been
feeding 11,500 displaced people.
The scale of the tragedy has shocked even the trouble-hardened people of
this oil-rich nation, which has been plagued for years with ethnic,
political and religious conflict.
Outbreaks of violence have killed thousands since President Olusegun
Obasanjo won 1999 elections ending 15 years of oppressive military rule.
The country's fragile stability took yet another blow when police officers
went on strike Friday for the first time. Nigerian authorities were not
linking the strike to the explosions.
By Saturday, the protest appeared to have collapsed after the government
ordered the army into the streets and officers who took part in the strike
were threatened with dismissal and prosecution.
Copyright © 2002, The Associated Press
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