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                     Abuja Blast Impacts Lives, Livelihoods

   by Heather Murdock

   In the aftermath of the worst terrorist attack on the Nigerian capital
   since an insurgency began in 2009, survivors say they escaped with
   their lives but lost everything else.  Officials say they are looking
   at ways to help the bombing victims and boosting security ahead of the
   World Economic Forum for Africa to be held in Nigeria next month.
   At this Abuja hospital, some bomb blast victims moan softly, but most
   sleep.  They've lost limbs and been burnt.
   Evere Ivbezim, a fruit seller, had her jaw nearly knocked off by the
   blast that hit Monday as she was boarding a bus, killing 71 people and
   injuring at least 124 others.
   But, she says, it's not just lives that were lost.
   "All my money.  All my handset.  Everything.  I no get anything.  Only
   my life, thank God.  Thank God for that, may government help us," said
   Ivbezim.
   Outside the hospital, Beni Lar, the chair of the Committee on Human
   Rights in the National Assembly, says many victims of the bombing were
   working-class people, barely scraping by in Abuja's "satellite towns."
   The "satellite towns" are where civil servants and other employees of
   Nigeria's pristine capital live, because they can't afford to stay in
   the city.  The towns are notorious for lacking electricity, clean water
   and for bad roads.
   Lar says the government should find a way to help the blast victims
   recover economically.
   "Those that have lost their breadwinners and their families, they will
   need some relief and some economic reintegration to the families of the
   victims," said Lar.
   Emergency management officials say they will be paying the hospital
   bills but have not determined if there will be any other form of
   compensation.
   The director general of Abuja's FCT Emergency Management Agency, Abbas
   Idriss, says the government is working to coordinate hospital responses
   to "mitigate the suffering" of any future attacks.
   But Monday's attack - the first in two years in the capital - was so
   devastating that authorites don't have enough room for the bodies.
   "The situation is that it's not really accommodating the victims.  That
   is why we have to look for alternative places to relocate all the
   corpses," said Idriss.
   Idriss also says the local government is increasing security ahead of
   the World Economic Forum for Africa next month.
   No one has claimed responsibility for the attack but analysts blame
   Boko Haram, an Islamist militant group that has killed thousands of
   people, saying it wants to enforce its harsh version of Islamic law.
   Most of the violence has been in the northeast, where three states have
   been under emergency rule for nearly a year.  Nigeria's military says
   it has largely contained the group, reclaiming formerly occupied lands,
   arresting and killing insurgents and scattering many who escaped.
   But large-scale, deadly attacks continue, and rights groups say more
   than 1,500 people have been killed this year alone.
   And at the Nyanya Motor Park hours after the attack, Vera Achoin, a
   local English teacher, points to dozens of bombed-out city buses and
   says she fears the conflict is spreading.

   "Many died, many.  All those buses you see there.  People were all
   filled inside to go and yet they had not gone.  The drivers, the one
   that survived you see them swimming in blood," said Achoin.
   The Nigeria Security and Civil Defense Corps says it will deploy
   100,000 extra security guards on the roads and around churches for the
   upcoming Easter holiday.
   Boko Haram has threatened Christians and previously attacked churches
   on Christian holidays.  However, the vast majority of its victims have
   been Muslims.
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References

   1. http://www.voanews.com/content/abuja-blast-impacts-lives-livelihoods/1893926.html