ABUJA, (Reuters) – 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.
Boko Haram, which wants to impose Islamic sharia law across the 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 km 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 told Reuters. “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 U.N. headquarters in August that killed at least 23 people.
Rights groups say more than 250 people have been killed by Boko Haram since July 2010.
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 were wounded in Gadaka.
Police found two other explosive devices in Jos, which they deactivated and arrested one man.
Residents of the northeastern city of Damaturu also reported two blasts but there were no details immediately available.
CHAOS AND CARNAGE
A Reuters reporter on the scene of the explosion close to Abuja saw the large church’s front roof had been destroyed in the blast, as had several houses near it. Five burnt out cars were still smouldering.
“The officials who counted told me they have picked 27 bodies so far,” Father Christopher Barde, Assistant Catholic Priest of 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 (NEMA) spokesman Yushau Shuaib said initially by telephone. More ambulances came later.
“Mass just ended and people were rushing out of the church and suddenly I heard a loud sound ‘gbam’. Cars were in flames and bodies littered everywhere,” Nnana Nwachukwu told Reuters.
“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.”
