Algiers death toll rises to 37

UNITED NATIONS — The United Nations raised the death toll of staffers killed in the car bombing of its Algiers headquarters to 17 on Friday, after rescue workers found more bodies buried under rubble.

The newly discovered victims bring the total killed in Tuesday's terrorist attacks to 37, according to Algeria's Interior Ministry. Al-Qaida's North African wing claimed responsibility for the dual suicide bombings of the city's courthouse and the U.N. buildings.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said that "words cannot do justice to the grief I feel" and pledged to ensure adequate security for U.N. staff wherever they serve.

"This was an attack not only against the United Nations, not only against Algerians, but against humankind itself," Ban said.

Two senior U.N. officials are in Algiers to aid victims' families and assess how the organization's many aid agencies based there can safely continue their work.

Of the 17 staffers who were killed, 14 were Algerian, and the other three were from Denmark, the Philippines and Senegal. The victims came from eight U.N. agencies, with the U.N. Development Program the hardest hit, with nine dead.

The attack on the United Nations is the most severe since the 1993 suicide bombing of the Baghdad headquarters, which killed 22 people, including veteran diplomat Sergio Vieira de Mello. After that bombing, the United Nations withdrew most of its staff from Iraq and tried to upgrade security measures at its compounds around the world.

The U.N.'s humanitarian chief, John Holmes, said this week that aid workers, once considered neutral, have become targets in many countries where they are trying to provide help to people.

Security measures were heightened this week at the U.N.'s New York headquarters. On Friday, police closed off two lanes of traffic in front of the U.N. building and erected an "eyes in the sky" tower with 360-degree cameras, citing intelligence that U.N. facilities everywhere are considered targets.