By Ismail Auwal
Passengers that survived the attack on the Abuja-Kaduna train recounted a near-death experience.
Some of the affected passengers that talked to SAHELIAN TIMES have described the horror they faced inside the train as the bandits bomb the rail track as harrowing.
One of the passengers, Aliyu Abubakar, said the train left Abuja around 6 p.m. and was moving smoothly until they heard a loud explosive sound close to Dutse-Kakau.
“I was reading a book from the time the train left the station until I heard the explosion, and all passengers were laying on the ground before I could make any serious move.
“We became very terrified; many people were praying among us, and our bodies began to tremble,” he narrated.
He said the train encountered two IEDs, and was derailed by second one, after managing to overcome the first.
According to Abubakar, the bandits accessed the train in a matter of minutes and start shooting randomly at the passengers.
“The lady sitting behind me was killed instantly, there was blood everywhere, and many others were injured.”
Another passenger, Ruqayyah Usman, stated, “I only escaped because my time on earth is not over, but I never thought I would come out of the incident alive.
Continuing, Ruqayya said, “I was dozing when I heard the loud explosion; I thought I was dreaming, and it wasn’t until I started hearing people screaming and gunshots that I realized what chaos I was in.
“I couldn’t even lay on the ground like I saw other passengers do; I’m still in trauma, and I don’t think the experience will go away easily”.
Muhammad Adam, who was also on the train, however, lamented that they were left stranded for hours without any help.
“We were left unattended in the state of fear with no security on until around 12:45 a.m. before the military arrived with their vehicles to pick us up,” he explained.
Bandits numbering over 300 trapped a passenger train running from Abuja to Kaduna in the late hours of Monday by bombing the train track with an Improvised Explosive Device (IED), causing the train to stop.
Upon the stoppage of the train, the bandits began to fire gunshots sporadically.
Kaduna State Government on Tuesday said that the “evacuation of passengers on the trapped Kaduna-bound train from Abuja has been concluded this morning by security forces, officials of Kaduna State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) and Nigerian Red Cross.”
Samuel Aruwan, the Commissioner, Ministry of Internal Security and Home Affairs, Kaduna State, in a statement, explained that “passengers who sustained injuries, and other fatalities, have been moved to hospitals.”
According to him,”passengers were evacuated from different hard-to-reach areas in forests and rocky locations in Audujongom, off the Kaduna-Abuja Road.”
“As stated yesterday, the Kaduna State Government is still liaising with the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) to ascertain the list from the passengers manifest for efficient tracking.”
“Governor Nasir El-Rufai who commended all those who participated in the evacuation, appealed to the hospitals to attend to the victims diligently.”
“The Governor also directed the Ministry of Health to be in contact with the hospitals as government will bear the cost of their treatment.”As of the time of this update, search-and-rescue operations are in progress.”
