Weekend Church Attacks Leave Scores Dead in Northern Nigeria

Gunmen in Nigeria have killed at least 20 people in two separate assault incidents targeting church services in the northern part of the country on Sunday.

At least 16 people are reported by the Nigerian Red Cross to have died and several others injured when attackers with bombs and guns on Sunday raided two campus church services at Bayero University in the city of Kano.

According to witnesses, the gunmen arrived in a car and on two motorcycles, then opened fire and threw homemade bombs at the worshippers causing a stampede while scampering for safety. One witness said the gunmen first raided an open-air service outside the campus’s faculty of medicine before attacking another service at the sporting complex.

"They threw in explosives and fired shots, causing a stampede among worshippers. They now pursued them, shooting them with guns...said the witness. Another witness who was at the sporting complex said to have heard gunshots outside while they were praying. "Then there was pandemonium," he said, recounting how he saw two men outside shooting indiscriminately.

In another attack Sunday, gunmen are reported to have shot dead at least five people, including a pastor, who were attending a church service in Maiduguri, the stronghold city of Islamic sect, Boko Haram.

Area’s police spokesman Samuel Tizhe confirmed the attack at the Church of Christ in Nigeria, which has been confirmed also by the Stefanos Foundation which monitors violence against Christians in Nigeria.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the Sunday attacks, fashioned in a similar way like those carried out by Boko Haram militants who have always targeted Christians and national security installations in their increasingly bloody insurgency mostly in northern Nigeria, a predominantly Muslim region.

The group has always targeted churches including the Christmas Day bombing of a church outside the capital, Abuja, which left at least 44 dead and also the Easter Sunday bomb attack near a church in the northern city of Kaduna killing at least 41 people.

The deadliest attack ever to be claimed by the group was in January 20 in Kano; where co-ordinated bomb and gun attacks left 185 people dead, highest ever single attack claimed by the sect that fights for creation of an Islamic state in northern Nigeria.

Its recent strike follows Thursday’s bomb attack at the offices of the ThisDay newspaper in Abuja and another one in Kaduna that left nine people dead. President Goodluck Jonathan during his visit to the bombed newspaper offices on Saturday said the government will exploit every means possible to bring such insurgency to an end, hinting on possibilities of dialogue with the group.

Talks between the sect and the government collapsed in March in what the group said it could not trust the government, with a mediator quitting following leaks of the talks in the media.

The Vatican condemned what it called "terrorist" attacks on Christians in Nigeria and Kenya and called for restraint to prevent a cycle of violence.

A grenade attack on a church in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, on Sunday killed one person and injured at least 15 others, among them five being in critical condition. An attacker who was part of the congregation is said to have set off the grenade during a church service and fled immediately according to police officials who confirmed the incident.