100 Wounded After Suicide Attack In Nigeria

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According to NBC News:

A suicide bomber drove a vehicle packed with explosives into a Catholic church in northern Nigeria on Sunday, killing at least five people, wounding nearly 100 and triggering reprisal attacks that killed at least two more, officials said. The bomber drove a jeep right inside the packed St Rita’s church, in the Malali area of Kaduna, a volatile ethnically and religiously mixed city, in the morning.

“I cannot tell you how many casualties, but there were many. The heavy explosion also damaged so many buildings around the area,” said survivor Linus Lighthouse, saying he thought there had been two explosions in different parts of the church. Other witnesses and the police said there had just been one bomber however. A spokesman for the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) in Kaduna said that five people had been confirmed killed, while 98 people were receiving treatment for wounds at two local hospitals.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility but Islamist sect Boko Haram has claimed similar attacks in the past and has attacked several churches with bombs and guns since it intensified its campaign against Christians in the past year. One wall of the church was blasted open and scorched black, with debris lying around. Police later moved in and cordoned the area off.

Shortly after the blast, angry Christian youths took to the streets armed with sticks and knives. A Reuters reporter saw two bodies on 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 his cohorts away. Police set up roadblocks and patrols across town in an effort to prevent the violence spreading. Another witness, Daniel Kazah, a member of the Catholic cadets in the church, said he had seen three bodies on the bloodied church floor after the bomb. “But still others were taken to the mortuary,” he said. An emergency worker on the scene, who had helped move casualties but was not authorized to give his name, estimated the total number of dead and wounded at around 30.