'I Watched As My 2 Children Were Blown Up In Jos Bomb Blast'

Survivors of the bomb blast in Dilimi Yantaya Mosque where Sheikh Yahaya Jingir was conducting Tafsir have given a vivid account of how the blast occurred in the area.

A widow identified as Mama Peter has disclosed that she lost two of her children in the Bauchi road motor park blast.

Mama Peter who was a food vendor at the park when the explosion occurred said her two children were helping out to serve food to customers before the explosions consumed the two of them. She wept disconsolately as she told her story.

Another resident, Malam Ademu, a dealer of textile materials who escaped narrowly, said they were inside the mosque listening to a sermon when all of a sudden they heard sporadic gunfire coming from all directions which were accompanied by laud explosions.

He said immediately the explosions occurred, the light went out and the whole place was plunged into total darkness with panic-stricken people falling over themselves. He added that dead bodies littered the ground as people ran helter-skelter, with those who sustained serious injuries crawling around on the ground, crying for help.

At the Plateau Specialist Hospital, Jos, It was observed that corpses littered the ground as relatives of victims tried to identify them either by the shirts or shoes they wore, as many of them were mutilated beyond recognition.

A medical worker on condition of anonymity said some of the corpses were yet to be claimed because they were burned and mutilated.

Meanwhile, the death toll from the twin bomb blasts that rocked a Mosque at Dilimi Yantaya and a restaurant at Bauchi road motor park in Jos North local government area of Plateau State on Sunday night has risen to 44.

It was learnt that some of the dead had been buried, but the injured are receiving treatment at various hospitals, namely, the Plateau State Specialist Hospital, Our Lady of Apostle hospital, Bingham University Teaching Hospital (Jankwano) and Sunnah Hospital, Angwan Rimi, all in Jos, the Plateau State capital.

Among the dead the husband of former Plateau State commissioner of tourism during Chief Joshua Dariye’s tenure, Hajiya Fati Kyari. Mr. Kyari’s body was pierced with bullets.

The coordinator, North Central, National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Mr. Mohammed Abdulsalam said 44 people lost their lives while 47 others were critically injured in the twin blasts.

Abdulsalam told journalists at the premises of the Plateau State Hospital, Jos, that a majority of the wounded were admitted at the intensive care unit (ICU) of the Plateau Specialist Hospital.

“This was the first hospital we brought them to but because of the casualty figure, the hospital facility was overstretched so we took some of them to Bingham University Teaching Hospital, Jankwano and Our Lady of Apostle Hospital,” he said, adding that the agency had made provisions for some consumables to be used in treating the patients.

In reaction to blast at Yantaya Mosque in Jos, youths in the area allegedly set ablaze the Cherubim and Seraphim Church in Dilimi.

The church had suffered a series of destruction in past riots but has remained the only one still standing in this area.

Meanwhile, the Plateau State governor, Simon Lalong, has described the attacks on his state as unfortunate and highly condemnable, even as he called on residents of Jos North and the entire citizens of the state to remain calm and to “stand in solidarity with one another in the face of the onslaught by agents of death on our collective resolve to remain as one united people in spite of ethnic and religious differences.”

According to a statement issue and signed by the director, Press and Public Affairs, to the governor, Samuel Emmanuel Nanle, it is regrettable that at a time when Muslim faithful are settled to the fulfilment of a religious obligation, agents of death, chaos and anarchy have chosen to disrupt the peace of the state by orchestrating a spade of sporadic bomb blasts to portray a state of dissatisfaction that pitches otherwise peaceful co-inhabitants against themselves.

Governor Lalong also urged president Mohammadu Buhari to return military checkpoints in order check future recurrence.

The governor further directed all medical institutions in the state to respond to medical situations at government expense with respect to the emergency situation at hand.

Also, a member representing Barkin Ladi/Riyom federal constituency at the House of Representatives, Hon. Istifanus Gyang, yesterday strongly condemned the twin bomb attacks at Jos metropolis on Sunday night.