Deadly blasts shatter churches in Nigeria
Source: Agencies |
December 26, 2011, Monday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
ISLAMIST militant group Boko Haram said it planted bombs that exploded on Christmas Day at churches in Nigeria, one of which killed at least 27 people on the outskirts of the capital Abuja.
Boko Haram, which wants to impose Islamic sharia law across a country split roughly equally between Christians and Muslims, has escalated its tactics this year and increased the sophistication of the explosives it uses.
St Theresa's Catholic Church in Madala, an Abuja satellite town about 40 kilometers from the centre of the capital, was packed out when the powerful bomb exploded during a Christmas service.
"We were in the church with my family when we heard the explosion. I just ran out," Timothy Onyekwere said. "Now I don't even know where my children or my wife are. I don't know how many were killed but there were many dead."
Boko Haram - which in the Hausa language spoken in northern Nigeria means "Western education is sinful" - is loosely modelled on the Taliban movement in Afghanistan.
The sect was blamed for dozens of bombings and shootings in the north, and has claimed responsibility for two bombings in Abuja this year, including Nigeria's first suicide bombing on the United Nations headquarters in August that killed at least 23 people.
Hours after the first bomb, blasts were reported at the Mountain of Fire and Miracles Church in the central, ethnically and religiously mixed town of Jos, and at a church in northern Yobe state at the town of Gadaka. Residents said many people were wounded in Gadaka.
Police found two other explosive devices in Jos, which they deactivated. One man was arrested.
Residents of the northeastern city of Damaturu also reported two blasts but no details were available.
A reporter at the scene of the explosion close to Abuja said that the large church's front roof had been destroyed in the blast, as had several houses near it.
"The officials who counted told me they have picked 27 bodies so far," Father Christopher Barde, an assistant priest at the church, said.
There were scenes of chaos after the incident. "We are presently there, evacuating the dead and the injured, but unfortunately we don't have enough ambulances," National Emergency Management Agency spokesman Yushau Shuaib said initially. More ambulances came later.
"Mass had just ended and people were rushing out of the church and suddenly I heard a loud bang, cars were in flames and bodies were littered everywhere," Nnana Nwachukwu said. "The blast occurred on the road by the church and not inside the church. I happen to also live close by the church. Help was very slow in coming to the injured."
President Goodluck Jonathan, who is struggling to contain the threat of Islamist militancy, called the incident "unfortunate" but said Boko Haram would "not be (around) for ever. It will end one day."
The area around the church was cordoned off by police. Thousands of furious youths set up burning road blocks on the highway leading to Nigeria's largely Muslim north.
Last Christmas Eve, a series of bomb blasts around Jos killed 32 people, and other people died in attacks on two churches in the northeast of the nation.
Gun battles between the security forces and Boko Haram killed at least 68 people in two days of fighting in northern Nigeria, authorities and hospital sources said on Saturday.
Boko Haram, which wants to impose Islamic sharia law across a country split roughly equally between Christians and Muslims, has escalated its tactics this year and increased the sophistication of the explosives it uses.
St Theresa's Catholic Church in Madala, an Abuja satellite town about 40 kilometers from the centre of the capital, was packed out when the powerful bomb exploded during a Christmas service.
"We were in the church with my family when we heard the explosion. I just ran out," Timothy Onyekwere said. "Now I don't even know where my children or my wife are. I don't know how many were killed but there were many dead."
Boko Haram - which in the Hausa language spoken in northern Nigeria means "Western education is sinful" - is loosely modelled on the Taliban movement in Afghanistan.
The sect was blamed for dozens of bombings and shootings in the north, and has claimed responsibility for two bombings in Abuja this year, including Nigeria's first suicide bombing on the United Nations headquarters in August that killed at least 23 people.
Hours after the first bomb, blasts were reported at the Mountain of Fire and Miracles Church in the central, ethnically and religiously mixed town of Jos, and at a church in northern Yobe state at the town of Gadaka. Residents said many people were wounded in Gadaka.
Police found two other explosive devices in Jos, which they deactivated. One man was arrested.
Residents of the northeastern city of Damaturu also reported two blasts but no details were available.
A reporter at the scene of the explosion close to Abuja said that the large church's front roof had been destroyed in the blast, as had several houses near it.
"The officials who counted told me they have picked 27 bodies so far," Father Christopher Barde, an assistant priest at the church, said.
There were scenes of chaos after the incident. "We are presently there, evacuating the dead and the injured, but unfortunately we don't have enough ambulances," National Emergency Management Agency spokesman Yushau Shuaib said initially. More ambulances came later.
"Mass had just ended and people were rushing out of the church and suddenly I heard a loud bang, cars were in flames and bodies were littered everywhere," Nnana Nwachukwu said. "The blast occurred on the road by the church and not inside the church. I happen to also live close by the church. Help was very slow in coming to the injured."
President Goodluck Jonathan, who is struggling to contain the threat of Islamist militancy, called the incident "unfortunate" but said Boko Haram would "not be (around) for ever. It will end one day."
The area around the church was cordoned off by police. Thousands of furious youths set up burning road blocks on the highway leading to Nigeria's largely Muslim north.
Last Christmas Eve, a series of bomb blasts around Jos killed 32 people, and other people died in attacks on two churches in the northeast of the nation.
Gun battles between the security forces and Boko Haram killed at least 68 people in two days of fighting in northern Nigeria, authorities and hospital sources said on Saturday.
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