‘My daughter is badly injured’

• Bereaved father mourns his wife and in-laws in Abuja twin bomb blasts
• 17 blast victims stabilizing at National Hospital
IFEOLUWA was riding happily on her mother’s back in the Kuje suburb of Abuja, suddenly there was a bomb blast and she was violently ripped off her mother’s back. The 11-month old who is among the few survivors of last Friday’s dastardly twin blasts in the nation’s capital, is now battling for her life as she has been wheeled into the operating theatre.

Days after the Abuja bomb blasts in Kuje and Nyanya towns of Abuja, the hospitals treating the victims are still a beehive of activities.
At the morgue of the National Hospital, 12 bodies lay still, waiting to be taken away by relatives for burial. So far, 11 of the bodies have been identified, while one female body is yet to be identified. Authorities have, however, started the relevant protocols with relatives of the identified bodies preparatory to releasing them.

Seventeen of the individuals who survived the blasts are at the Hospital and are stabilizing, authorities have told The Guardian.
Of the figure, two are in i-patient male surgical unit, 15 at the Trauma Centre.
Of the 15 at the Trauma Centre, two are at the intensive care unit (ICU), while the Women and Children’s Ward has two patients, a woman and a baby.

The Burnt Unit has four males while the resuscitation Unit has six males and one female.
In the Women and Children Ward is 11-month-old Ifeoluwa who lost her mother, uncle, aunt and grandmother. As the blasts hit the locations, Ifeoluwa was riding happily on her mother’s back.

But that is gone now, as her mother, uncle, aunt and grandmother are now lying lifeless in the morgue, while surgeons struggle to make her walk normally again.

Eyewitnesses say the Kuje suicide bomber abandoned his bike by the market and pretended to get airtime. When the bomb went off, Ifeoluwa’s right leg took the blast. Her right foot is damaged, and the fourth and fifth toes damaged.
Officials told The Guardian that she has to undergo surgical operation to fix a deep laceration on the right leg. For now, the gory injury is dressed everyday preparatory to surgery. She is stable but unable to use the leg to walk normally.

In the cacophony of the blast, Ifeoluwa’s father, Samuel Abolarin on hearing of the blast, was inconsolable. He searched frantically everywhere for his family. His search took him to the National Hospital.
Alas, only his daughter was among the living. She was recognized only by a piece of the shawl with which her wife had strapped their baby to her back.

Still traumatized by the number of losses he suffered in the blast, Ifeoluwa’s father mutters: “She’s doing well. We thank God.”
Concerning his wife, he battled to hold back his tears.
“She’s late. Bomb blast,” he mutters.

He managed to recount the story. “So now, I’ve lost my wife, my mother-in-law, my brother-in-law. Three of them are dead. My daughter survived, and is very, very injured. Under her foot, it is as if the blast ate it. You can see through to the bones of the three toes left behind.”

Ifeoluwa’s right eye is also swollen, along with scrapes and bruises along the right side of her body. In a diaper, an IV line stuck into her arm, she doesn’t seem to know what happened to her. She struggles to grab her father’s phone as he speaks. She relaxes when he plays an audio file of one of her favourite cartoons. She calms down when he opened a video of her dog at home.

Ifeoluwa hung onto her father, crying.
President Muhammadu Buhari at the weekend visited the survivors of Friday’s bomb blasts who are receiving treatment at the Trauma Centre of the National Hospital, asking for their hospital bills to be offset by government.

Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Mr Femi Adesina, in a statement said Buhari was accompanied by his personal aides and Ogun State Governor, Ibikunle Amosun.
Adesina said President Buhari visited the Intensive Care Unit, the Paediatric unit and general wards of the National Hospital.
He said Buhari reassured the survivors that the Federal Government would take full responsibility for settling their medical bills.