Nyanya bombing: Pathologists still working to identify dismembered bodies

The federal government yesterday said pathologists and forensic experts were still working frantically with the help of members of families to identify mutilated bodies in last week Nyanya bomb blast.

Minister of State for Health Dr Khaliru Alhassan said this when he visited some hospitals in Abuja where some survivals are receiving treatment.

He said: “If you take into consideration the nature of the incident; it mutilated the body. So, it is not an easy task immediately to say this is somebody. We are relating with the families of the victims, and already, we have made some progress. Some victims have been properly identified and released to their next of kin for proper burial. But, we are still working on identification.”

The minister said some of the injured persons had been discharged from the hospital while others were responding to treatment.

At the Asokoro Hospital, he told reporters: “We came out today to visit the victims of this bomb blast to see the progress they are making and to let us see the efforts put up by our colleagues who are taking care of them.”

He however stated that death toll from the blast remained 75 earlier given by his colleague Minister of Health, Prof Onyebuchi Chukwu on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) yesterday demanded that appropriate machinery be put in place to identify the mutilated bodies.

The NMA called for use of full scale forensic investigation, DNA analysis and other “globally accepted modalities of Disaster Victim Identification (DVI) and documentation which would aid further ballistic investigation,” to help identify the mutilated casualties.