Sunday, April 29, 2012

Boko Haram hits university catholic mass, kills 25

Gunmen attacked a Catholic Mass on Bayero University campus Sunday, using small explosives to draw worshippers out before shooting those who fled, killing at least 25 people.
The attackers targeted an old section of the university campus where religious groups use a theatre to hold worship services, Kano state police spokesman Ibrahim Idris said. The assault left many others seriously wounded, Idris said.
"By the time we responded, they entered (their) motorcycles and disappeared into the neighbourhood," the commissioner said.
"I counted at least 15 dead bodies. I think they were being taken to the Amino Kano teaching hospital," a witness who did not wish to be identified told Reuters. He said he saw many more people being treated for injuries.
A security source said at least 20 people were dead and a source at the hospital said by telephone he had seen 10-15 dead bodies brought in with gunshot wounds and dozens more wounded were being treated.
Bayero University spokesman, Mustapha Zahradeen, said two university professors had been killed in the attacks.
No group immediately claimed responsibility. However, Idris said the attackers used small explosives packed inside of aluminum soda cans for the assault, a method previously used by a radical Islamist sect known as Boko Haram.

Boko Haram is waging a growing sectarian battle with Nigeria's weak central government, using suicide car bombs and assault rifles in attacks across the country's predominantly Muslim north and around its capital Abuja. Those killed have included Christians, Muslims and government officials. The sect has been blamed for killing more than 450 people this year alone, according to an Associated Press count.
Diplomats and military officials say Boko Haram has links with two other al-Qaeda-aligned terrorist groups in Africa. Members of the sect also reportedly have been spotted in northern Mali which Tuareg rebels and hardline Islamists seized control of over the past month.
In January, a co-ordinated assault on government buildings and other sites in Kano by Boko Haram killed at least 185 people. In the time since, the sect has been blamed for attacking police stations and carrying out smaller assaults in the city. On Thursday, the sect carried out a suicide car bombing at the Abuja offices of the influential newspaper ThisDay and a bombing at an office building it shared with other publications in the city of Kaduna. At least seven people were killed in those attacks.


Courtesy: Agency report

3 comments:

Dele said...

It is time this forceful marriage called Nigeria be done away with. Let North be north and South remain south. Sudan has done it, Nigeria must do it too. It looks the inevitable path now.

Dele said...

Jonathan What are you waiting. Declare the dismemberment of this experiment at the impossible.

Anonymous said...

I am sick and tired of this continuous bombing of Christians by Islamic fundamentalist. It is a high time we decide whether or not we want to live together. Sharia cannot work in the whole of Nigeria. If they insist on Sharia, let us harmoniously part ways.