163 Passengers Still Missing, 191 Recovered And Reunited With Families – NRC

No fewer than 163 passengers and about seven crew members are still missing eight days after the ill-fated Kaduna-bound train was attacked by terrorists on Monday March 28, 2022, the Nigerian Railway Corporation’s (NRC) Managing Director Engr Fidet Okhiria said on Tuesday.

Okhiria, who disclosed this in a statement, the sixth update since the incident broke last Tuesday, however said five more persons have been confirmed safe and reunited with their families.

He said this bringils the total of safe persons on the ill-fated Kaduna bound AK9 train to 191.

He said 362 passengers were on the night train when the incident happened on last Monday.

Giving a breakdown of the figures of the missing persons, Okhiria said 46 of those missing, still have their phone numbers (contained in the manifest), switched off, or not reachable, since last Tuesday while 33 phone numbers are ringing but still no response from the other end.

Sixty two phone numbers contained in the manifest have continued to respond non-existent while 22 persons are reported missing by relatives, and eight are confirmed dead.

This brings to 171, the total number of passengers who have been declared either missing or dead, since the incident broke eight days ago.

Okhiria confirmed that on board the ill-fated train are 20 train crew members, out of which seven are NRC Staff, 10 are janitors and three are caterers.

Of these, five of the NRC staff have been confirmed safe, while two are still missing, one of the janitors have been reported dead, while three are missing and six have been confirmed safe, while only one of the caterers have been confirmed safe, while the remaining two are still missing.

The Corporation managing Director said one more coach (SP00020) have been successfully re-railed and safely moved to Rigasa Station, bringing the total number of recovered coaches to eight, as intensive track repair works continued on site to enable the recovery of the remaining coaches and locomotives.

Okhiria said the corporation remained committed to the rescue and recovery of all passengers on board the ill-fated train service.