By Emma Ujah, Kingsley Omonobi and Victoria Ojeme
The United NationsBuilding in Abuja came under a massive bomb attack when a suicide bomber rammed the building with his car, yesterday morning, killing at least 25 people and injuring over 40.

As at 2.35 pm, a total 14 dead had been recorded: 8 corpses had been counted at the National Hospital Mortuary and another 6 at the Garki Hospital Morgue. The number of those injured was still being collated, while rescue work was on-going.

The car blew into pieces along with all those in the reception at the time of the incident. Security officers at the entrance and the reception who tried but in vain to stop the bomber suffered worst casualties.

The suicide attacker drove the Honda salon car at top speed, ignoring the speed bumps, with headlights fully on and rammed the car into the first gate of the exit point of the UN building, uprooted it, continued to the 2nd gate, uprooted it and drove into the reception hall of the building where the suicide bomber detonated the explosive.

The impact of the explosive caused the ground floor, 1st floor and 2nd floor of the UN building to cave in, with several bodies ostensibly of staff on these floors immediately blown into pieces while the other floors had several parts of the building collapsing on one another and on staff of UN agencies working there.

See more photos here mind you some are gory

Saturday Vanguard gathered that four policemen attached to the UN building for security duties but who were not allowed the use of firearms in accordance with UN rules, were seriously injured when the blast went off. The same could not be said of the privately arranged UN security personnel manning the gates into the complex.

It was as if the bomber knew that only one part of the gate was always open where both incoming and outgoing vehicles follow, for screening purposes. He then made for the exit gate which is permanently locked, smashed into the gates and before the security staff could react, drove into the reception. The body of the bomber was later recovered in parts as it was split into three parts by the explosives.

Moments after the blast occurred, the Commissioner of Police, FCT, Mike Zuokumor, Gurads Brigade Commander, Brigadier General Atewe, Commissioner of Police, Federal Operations, Haruna John, the CP in charge Police Bomb Squad, Ambrose Aisabor, CP Anti-Terrorist Squad, Mshelbwala, CP in charge Mobile Police, Philemon Leha all moved to the scene with police personnel to commence mobilization of evacuation, comb the scene for any other explosives and commence investigation.

At about 11am, a 5-man American military team, made up of explosive ordinance detonation experts (EOD), from the nearby US embassy, was seen moving into the building, examining the charred remains of the Honda car used for the suicide and collecting some items from the scene believed to be parts of the type bomb used in the attack.

The Deputy Inspector General of Police 2i/c to the IGP, Mrs. Ivy Uche Okoronkwo, DIG in charge FCID, Ganiyu Dawodu, DIG in charge Training, Abubakar Sadauna, DIG in charge ‘F’ Dept. DIG Yesufu, AIG Zone 7, and AIG Intelligence (Yar’adua), were also at the UN building to see things for themselves.

Chief of Army Staff, Lt. General Azubuike Ihejirika who had just arrived from Kaduna, also visited the UN house at about 12. 15pm where he was briefed about what happened by his officers including Maj-General Nasamu, Commander AHQ Garrison and Commander Guards Brigade, Brigadier General Atewe.

The Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary General (SRSG), Mrs. Margaret Log, who arrived the country on Wednesday, visited the UN building on Thursday and spent some hours discussing with UN personnel on several issues affecting their work and that of Nigeria’s peacekeeping commitments to UN missions around the world.

Parts of the car was said to have gone up in flames immediately after the blast which also destroyed virtually all the glass windows of the building. The entire ground floor adjoining the reception was a complete mess of blood, water, sand and dust.

The impact was so strong that even building as far as 400 meters got their windows also shattered

Fire fighters from within the vicinity of the building which is situated in the exclusive diplomatic zone of the Central Area and those from the Area 10 Garki Headquarters of the Federal Fire Service, the heavily guarded American Embassy, which was nearby, as well as security men were some of the first to arrive the scene.

However, they could not do much other than to put out the fire from the car and the reception and the havoc gad already been done.

With a short period, Ambulances from various organisations: the Road Safety, National Hospital, which is situated opposite the building, the American Embassy, National Emergency Management Agency, police, Civil Defence, Nigeria Air Force were everywhere rushing the dead and the injured to the National Hospital.

Dead bodies and parts of those who were blown to pieces were stilled being conveyed to the National Hospital with ambulances shuttling between the scene and the hospital for well over two hours.

The injured were rushed to the over-flowing emergency ward, while corpses and bags of parts of those blown to pieces were taken to the mortuary.

Doctors and other hospital workers had hard time trying to control the crowd of sympathizer and relatives of those who work in the UN Houses which houses all UN organs in the Federal Capital.

Man loses both eyes to blast

One of the victims of the UN House bombing lost both eyes to the blast. Doctors at the National Hospital, Abuja, disclosed that the man had his two eyes blown up and they had to operate on him to, at least, save his life.

It was also learnt that 80 per cent of those injured had broken bones as a result of the strong impact of the bomb.

Hospital appeals for blood

The National Hospital management has appealed to public to donate blood to victims of the UN House blast in Abuja, yesterday.

Doctors and other hospital staff came out to the entrance of the emergency ward on several occasions to plead with sympathisers who gathered in the hospital to generously donate blood in other to save the lives of victims who had lost much blood.