[ 2012-02-26 ]

Three killed in suicide blast at church in Nigeria
LAGOS (AFP) - A suicide bomber drove an explosives
packed car into a church in Nigeria's volatile
central city of Jos on Sunday and killed three
people, church leaders told AFP.

The attack is the latest in a country grappling
with what have become almost daily assaults, most
of them blamed on the Islamist sect Boko Haram.

Church workers said a car forced its way through
the gate during an early morning service.

"We were in the church during the time of worship
and a suicide bomber forced himself into through
the gate, into the church and the bomb exploded,"
John Haruna, the reverend of the Church of Christ
in Nigeria (COCIN), told AFP.

Another church member who is also an activist with
the Christian human rights organisation Stefanos
Foundation gave a similar account.

"It was suicide bomber, he drove his car into the
church, approaching the pulpit and it exploded.
Three members of the church died and 10 are
injured," Mark Lipdo, said.

He said pieces of human flesh littered the church
premises.

Boko Haram has been blamed for a wave of
increasingly bloody gun and bomb attacks in
several parts of Africa's most populous country in
recent months, mostly in the Muslim-dominated
north.

Incidents of attacks are also growing in the
central region, the so-called middle belt which
divides the predominantly Muslim north and the
mainly Christian south.

Last Sunday several people were wounded in an
explosion near a church outside the capital,
Abujba.

Boko Haram has targeted Christians on several
previous occasions, notably with a series of
coordinated blasts on Christmas Day.

Source - AFP

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