Facebook activates safety feature after Nigeria bombing

Lagos, Nov 18: Facebook has activated its "Safety Check" feature for the first time in Nigeria, after a bombing likely carried out by Boko Haram killed more than 30.

"We've activated Safety Check again after the bombing in Nigeria this evening," co-founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said in a post on the site.

The social network had come under criticism from those caught up in last Thursday's blasts in Beirut that they were not offered the service but those in Friday's Paris attacks were.

The tool allows users to check whether friends are safe after attacks or natural disasters such as earthquakes. Zuckerberg said at the weekend the feature would be used more widely in the future.

Yesterday night's bombing at a crowded lorry park in Yola, northeast Nigeria, was the first attack this month and left at least 32 dead and some 80 others injured.

The explosion bore the hallmarks of Boko Haram Islamists, who have repeatedly hit civilian "soft targets" in their six-year insurgency.

At least 17,000 people have been killed and more than 2.6 million made homeless by the violence in that period, with suicide and bomb attacks an almost daily occurrence in the northeast.

AFP