Church bombings, retaliations kill 36 people
Explosions thought to be linked to Boko Haram trigger retaliatory attacks on Muslims by Christians
A series of apparently coordinated bombings targeting churches in northern Nigeria Sunday provoked reprisals against Muslims by mobs of Christians. Up to 36 people were reported killed.
Explosions hit churches in four areas of Kaduna state in the latest in a series of attacks carried out against Sunday Christian services in the majority Muslim north of the country.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attacks, but Boko Haram, the Nigerian Islamist terror group that has links to al- Qaida, has carried out at least 10 similar strikes this year.
Authorities in Kaduna imposed a 24- hour curfew after gangs of young men blocked a major road heading south out of the state capital and dragged Muslims from their cars. There were unconfirmed reports that several people were killed and that the attacks were to revenge the bombings.
Four children who had been playing outside the Evangelical Good News Church in the Sabon- Gari district of Zaria, were among the first victims of Sunday’s blasts. Five men threw homemade bombs through the open door of the church, witnesses said. They were chased and reportedly beaten to death. Police could not confirm this.
Minutes later, a suicide bomber drove a car at the entrance of the Christ the King Roman Catholic Cathedral in Zaria before detonating explosives, killing three people including himself.
Less than an hour later, another blast took place in Kaduna, the state’s capital, killing at least 10 people and wounding 29, according to Andronicus Adeyemo, an official with the Nigerian Red Cross. There were two more explosions at churches in Nassarawa and Barnawa in the south of Kaduna.
“We are yet to get information on casualties,” Aliyu Mohammed, a spokesman for the Nigerian emergency management agency, said.
Assuming that they were coordinated by Boko Haram, the bombings have suggested a new level of attacks by the group and could provoke severe retaliations against Muslims in Nigeria, one diplomat said.
“Every weekend now there is a new attack, and it seems that what they are trying to do is make the Christians so angry that they go on the rampage against Muslim interests,” the diplomat, who asked to remain anonymous, said. “We have seen that today with these attacks on Muslims on the road out of Kaduna. If those riots spread, then we fear that there will be counter- reprisals by Muslim youth. It could spiral very quickly.”
Boko Haram, which translates as “Western education is sin,” has stated that it wants northern Nigeria ruled according to a strict interpretation of Islamic law, and that Christians should leave for the south.
Nigeria, the most populous African country, is split evenly between Muslims, who live mostly in the north, and Christians in the south. Until recently, there had been sporadic violence between the communities, but the increasing reach of Boko Haram threatens to deepen divisions and prompt further revenge attacks.
Christian preachers and bishops in the north have urged their congregations not to retaliate against the attacks.
Before Sunday, at least 96 people had been killed in 12 attacks on churches or places of Christian worship in northern Nigeria this year. Boko Haram said it planned at least 10 of the attacks.