Abuja: At least eight people were killed and more than 100 injured after a suicide attack hit a Catholic church in northern Nigeria. The reprisal attacks also left at least two killed.
According to media reports, the bomber drove right into the packed St Rita’s church in the Malali area of Kaduna, a volatile ethnically and religiously mixed city, in the morning, witnesses said.
A spokesman for the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) Yushua Shuaib said eight people had been confirmed killed and more than 100 injured.
No one has yet claimed the responsibility of the attack but Islamist sect Boko Haram has been blamed for similar attacks in the past. The militant group has attacked several churches with bombs and guns as it intensified its campaign against Christians in the past year.
“The heavy explosion also damaged so many buildings around the area,” said survivor Linus Lighthouse.
Church attacks often target Nigeria’s middle belt, where its largely Christian south and mostly Muslim north meet and where sectarian tensions run high. Kaduna’s mixed population lies along that faultline.
Shortly after the blast, angry Christian youths took to the streets armed with sticks and knives. A Reuters reporter saw two bodies at the roadside lying in pools of blood.
“We killed them and we’ll do more,” shouted a youth, with blood on his shirt, before police chased him and others away. Police set up roadblocks and patrols across the town in an effort to prevent the violence spreading.
At least 2,800 people have died in fighting since Boko Haram’s insurrection began in 2009, according to Human Rights Watch. Most were Muslims in the northeast of the country, where the sect usually attacks politicians and security forces.
The sect says it is fighting to create an Islamic state in Nigeria, whose 160 million people are split roughly evenly between Christians and Muslims.
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