Scores killed in Kano Central Mosque blasts

As worshipers ran out of the mosque, insurgents opened fire at them, killing dozens. Though the Kano State Commissioner of Police, Adenerele Tasheed Shinaba, could not be immediately reached for comment, the death toll appeared on the high side, as hospitals in the city were filled with victims.Some worshipers said the insurgents arrived the mosque […]

As worshipers ran out of the mosque, insurgents opened fire at them, killing dozens. Though the Kano State Commissioner of Police, Adenerele Tasheed Shinaba, could not be immediately reached for comment, the death toll appeared on the high side, as hospitals in the city were filled with victims.
Some worshipers said the insurgents arrived the mosque minutes after the start of the prayers in a bomb-laden car. A witness who gave his name as Abubakar, said: “Somebody close to me asked me to lie down flat and I did. After sometime we stood up and we started running. It was while we were running that we saw worshippers lynching two of the insurgents and afterwards, they set them ablaze. The other person you saw on fire was a suicide bomber who blew himself up.”
Witnesses said some worshipers mobbed two insurgents after they exhausted their ammunition. At the scene around 3 pm, three corpses said to be those of the insurgents, were seen smouldering.
Our correspondent reports that when security personnel, comprising police and soldiers, arrived the scene, residents of the densely populated area pounced on them, a development that created tension in the heart of the city. At the Murtala Mohammad Specialist Hospital, our correspondent saw many bodies deposited at the morgue. Hundreds of residents were seen trying to identify victims of the blasts.
A rescue worker, Sani Gambo Dandago, told Weekly Trust at the mortuary of at the Murtala Mohammed Hospital that he had counted over 100 bodies.
The mosque shares a fence with the palace of the Emir of Kano, Malam Muhammad Sanusi II, who weeks ago urged Nigerians to embrace self-defense in the fight against insurgency. The Emir left the state for a foreign trip last weekend. If he were in the state, he would probably have been in the mosque, as he performs his Juma’at prayers there most Fridays.