The Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai has confirmed that at least 20 people have been killed in a bomb attack at the Government Lodge in Sabon Gari, Zaria, Kaduna State. In the most deadly, more than 140 people were killed, majority men and boys, as they prayed in mosques in north-eastern Kukawa town on Wednesday. National Emergency Management Agency coordinator Abdussalam Mohammed told CBS News that 67 other people were wounded in the attacks, which happened on Sunday night.
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The explosion at the Yantaya Mosque came as leading cleric Sani Yahaya of the Jama’atu Izalatul Bidia organisation, which preaches peaceful co-existence of all religions, was addressing a crowd, according to survivors.
“They fire an RPG (rocket propelled grenade) at the mosque but it hit a metal bar on the facade and exploded”, he said.
Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari on Friday called the earlier attacks “inhuman and barbaric” and pledged that every last “Boko Haram bandit… would be hunted down without mercy and compromise”.
“I want to thank the executive governor of Borno state for his continued support to the Nigeria Army in pursuance of Operation Zaman Lafiya and in this particular case of also hosting the Nigeria Army Day Celebration 2015″, Minimah said.
Sabi’u Bako was picking up a takeout meal when he heard a massive explosion as he walked away with friends. Others said they were arrested because their brothers were suspected Boko Haram members.
“We are trying to move from one hospital to another to determine how many have died”, he said. “We can’t believe that we escaped”.
Earlier Sunday, a female suicide bomber struck a crowded service of the Redeemed Christian Church of God in Potiskum, killing six people, witnesses said. Jos had been attacked previous year by Boko Haram in a notorious attack that claimed over 100 lives.
Christians and Muslims in the city of Jos, Nigeria were killed in a string of recent attacks by a militant group.
Boko Haram has been waging an insurgency since 2009 to establish a state in Nigeria’s northeast adhering to strict sharia law.
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The actions of Boko Haram garnered global attention when the radicals took 276 girls hostage in April 2014.
