The Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) has released an update on the Abuja-Kaduna train that was attacked last week.
According to the corporation, a further 14 more passengers on board the train have been confirmed to be safe. That brings the total number of safe passengers to 186 of the 362 validated passengers.
Mr Fidet Okhiria, the NRC’s Managing Director, in a statement explained,
“The statement is aimed at updating Nigerians on the ongoing development regarding the clearing of the incident site (recovery of the rolling stock, repairs of the track) and status of Passengers that were on board the AK9 train of Monday, March 28.
“Of the 362 validated passengers on board the attacked AK9 train service, 186 persons on the manifest are confirmed to be safe and at their various homes (additional 14 persons confirmed safe today)”
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“51 phone numbers on the manifest are either switched off or have not been reachable since Tuesday morning and 35 phone numbers on the manifest are ringing, but no response from the other end. 60 phone numbers on the manifest when called, responded non-existent.”
“Intensive work continues on track repairs. More concrete Sleepers were moved to the site while some sections of twisted tracks has been straightened. We remain grateful to the security agencies for all the support. We are very appreciative of Squadron Commander MOPOL 1 Kaduna’s visit to the accident site today.
“The NRC will continue to update the general public of developments to prevent misleading information and falsehood,” he added.
Unfortunately, he also clarified that 22 persons are reported missing by their relatives and eight persons were confirmed dead.