Nigeria: Car-bomb attack on UN building; 18 dead

A suicide bomber on Friday rammed an explosives-laden car into the building of the United Nations Headquarters in the Nigerian capital Abuja, killing at least 18 people, including two women and a foreigner.

The blast, for which a radical Islamist sect Boko Haram has claimed responsibility, destroyed a huge portion of the five-storey building that houses 400 UN employees.

Police said 18 people died in the blast while eight others were injured. Among the dead was an unidentified foreign national besides two women, Daily Times newspaper reported.

Witnesses said the blast happened when a car rammed into the front of the building after crashing through two security barriers.

The building is the UN's main office in Nigeria, where 26 humanitarian and development agencies are based.

"All the four floors of the building were affected. The car, which rammed into the lobby of the building, exploded immediately killing the suspected bomber and almost everyone that were at the spot," the country's National Emergency

Management Agency spokesperson told PTI.

The oil rich African country's President Goodluck Jonathan condemned attack, describing it as "barbaric, senseless and cowardly".

The President said the attack is the most despicable assault on the UN's objectives of global peace and security, and "the sanctity of human life to which Nigeria wholly subscribes".

An unidentified spokesman for the radical sect spoke to the media claiming responsibility but gave no reason for the attack.

The rescue work was on at the site, located in the neighbourhood which houses several embassies, and fire fighters and police officers cordoned off the area.