NRC: Damaged sections of Abuja-Kaduna rail track under repair

Sections of the Abuja-Kaduna rail track that were destroyed by bandits in March are currently under repair.

Yakub Mahmood, deputy director of NRC public relations, confirmed the news to TheCable.

“Work is ongoing on the Abuja-Kaduna rail tracks. The railway engineers are repairing the destroyed sections,” Mahmood said.

Asked if he could estimate how long the repairs would take, he said: “I can’t say when the work will be finished but it will be completed soon.”

The Abuja-Kaduna rail track was blown up by gunmen when they attacked a Kaduna-bound train on March 28.

Explosives were said to have been planted on the rail track.

The attack occurred around Kateri-Rijana area of Kaduna — close to the train’s final stop.

Several passengers aboard the train were killed by the gunmen while many sustained varying degrees of injuries, and some were abducted.

The Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) subsequently suspended its Abuja-Kaduna train operations following the attack.

As of April 3, eight deaths had been confirmed by the NRC, while 22 persons were declared “still missing”.

The abductors had also reached out to family members of captives to demand various amounts as ransom.

In October, a train service along the same route was attacked by vandals.

Parts of the train tracks were destroyed by vandals with explosives which caused the shutdown of the engine of the train.