Radicals claim suicide attack on UN offices

A CAR laden with explosives rammed through two gates and blew up at the UN offices in Nigeria’s capital Abuja, killing at least 18 people and shattering part of the concrete structure.

A radical Islamist group, Boko Haram, has claimed responsibility.

The attack, carried out as the UN offices teemed with staff, comes as Africa’s most populous nation faces the growing threat of homegrown and international terrorism.

Militants from the radical Muslim sect from northeast Nigeria have carried out attacks in the country’s capital, though never on a foreign target. Unrest in the country’s oil-rich Niger Delta in the south has also spawned a violent militant group.

Witnesses said a sedan rammed through two separate gates at the compound as guards tried to stop the vehicle.

The suicide bomber inside crashed the car into the main reception area and detonated the explosives, inflicting the most damage possible.

“I saw scattered bodies,” said Michael Ofilaje, a UNICEF worker at the building, which he said shook with the explosion.

The Nigerian Red Cross reported that at least 16 people died in the attack, with at least 11 others injured, said Umar Mairiga, the organisation’s disaster management director.

The Nigerian Health Minister, Mohammad Ali Pate, made a public appeal for blood donation on the widely listened-to BBC Hausa language service, saying there were 60 injured at the National Hospital in Abuja.

The building houses about 400 employees of the UN in Nigeria. Authorities were still trying to account for everyone in the building at the time of the blast.

Picture: An injured man at the United Nations office after a car blew up in Abuja, Nigeria, yesterday. Picture: AP