Nigerian Blast Near Capital Leaves Nine

A bomb explosion near Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, left at least nine people dead and 11 others injured today, the country’s emergency agencies said.

The 11 are unconscious and are “receiving treatment in various hospitals in Abuja,” Emmanuel Okeh of Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps and Manzo Ezekiel of the National Emergency Management Agency said in a joint statement e-mailed to reporters. They revised their earlier statement that 8 people had died. 

The blast occurred near the location where an April 14 car bomb killed at least 75 people and injured more than 100 others. That attack was claimed by the Boko Haram Islamist militant group, which has been waging a violent campaign in the past five years to impose Shariah, or Islamic law, in Africa’s biggest economy. 

Gunmen suspected to be members of Boko Haram also seized 230 girls from a secondary school in northeastern Borno state last month, and are still holding about 180 of them hostage.

Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country with about 170 million people and its biggest oil producer, is almost evenly split between a mainly Muslim north and a predominantly Christian south.