Toll from Nigerian bomb attacks rises to 150

An unidentified man walks past the site of the police headquarters bombed by a suicide bomber in Kano, Nigeria, Sunday, Jan. 22, 2012. More than 150 people were killed in a series of coordinated attacks by a radical Islamist sect in north Nigeria's largest city, according to an internal Red Cross document seen Sunday by an Associated Press reporter. (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba)
An unidentified man walks past the site of the police headquarters bombed by a suicide bomber in Kano, Nigeria, Sunday, Jan. 22, 2012. More than 150 people were killed in a series of coordinated attacks by a radical Islamist sect in north Nigeria's largest city, according to an internal Red Cross document seen Sunday by an Associated Press reporter. (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba) (AP)
By Jon Gambrell, Associated Press
Posted: January 23, 2012

KANO, Nigeria - People in this northern Nigeria city once wore surgical masks to block the dust swirling through its sprawling neighborhoods, but swarming children hawked the masks Sunday for pennies apiece to block the stench of death at a hospital overflowing with the dead after a coordinated attack by a radical Islamist sect.

The Nigerian Red Cross now estimates more than 150 people died in Friday's attack in Kano, in which at least two suicide bombers from the Boko Haram sect detonated explosive-laden cars. The scope of the attack, apparently planned to free sect members held by authorities here, left even President Goodluck Jonathan speechless as he toured what remained of a regional police headquarters Sunday.

"The federal government will not rest until we arrest the perpetrators of this act," Jonathan had said earlier.

But unrest continued across Nigeria as unknown assailants in the northern state of Bauchi killed at least 11 people overnight Saturday in attacks in which at least two churches were bombed.

Friday's attacks by Boko Haram hit police stations, immigration offices, and the local headquarters of Nigeria's secret police in Kano, a city of more than nine million people that remains an important political and religious center in the country's Muslim north. The assault left corpses lying in the streets across the city, many wearing the uniforms of police or other security agencies.

On Sunday, soldiers wearing bulky bulletproof vests stood guard at intersections with bayoneted Kalashnikov rifles at the ready.

Signs of the carnage remained. A Red Cross report seen by an AP reporter said that the hospital had accepted more than 150 bodies from the attacks. That death toll could rise as officials continue to search for bodies.

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