Over 1,100 Still Missing After Lagos Blasts: Red Cross

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Thursday, January 31, 2002

Over 1,100 Still Missing After Lagos Blasts: Red Cross

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The Nigerian Red Cross Wednesday said it is doing the utmost in search for more than 1,100 people still missing in Sunday's bomb explosions at the Ikeja Military Cantonment in the country's commercial center of Lagos.

"We registered a total of 4,000 people reported missing betweenSunday and yesterday. Out of this we found 2,825 as of last night," Red Cross spokesman Patrick Bawa said.

The Red Cross Tuesday has reunited at least 126 displaced children with their families, saying it believed thousands of children are still missing, Bawa said.

The organization said some displaced children are presently being kept by the police as well as traditional rulers and promised to get the children together in a central location for better accessibility.

According to a state media report, more than 1,100 people were found dead in the blasts, though the official figure put the casualties at 600. While local newspapers said the final toll fromthe catastrophe that damaged a huge number of residential and public buildings could be over 2,000.

Nigerian Defense Minister Theophilus Danjuma Tuesday also warned that the Ikeja Military Cantonment is not safe yet, callingfor the residents of the barracks who have been evacuated from their homes not to return now.

Thousands of displaced families, whose houses and properties were burnt completely, now are settled in the open and other uncompleted and unused buildings around the barracks.

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