Nigeria continues to reel under a spate of attacks that have claimed nearly 200 lives within last week. In the latest attack suspected to be carried out by Boko Haram, some 44 people were killed in separate bombings at a mosque and a restaurant in the central Nigerian city of Jos.
The explosions took place at Yantaya Mosque and an elite Muslim restaurant Shagalinku, which is patronized by politicians.
The bombing at the mosque took place as a leading cleric who preaches peaceful co-existence was addressing a crowd during the holy month of Ramadan.
In another attack suspected to be staged by the militant outfit Boko Haram, a woman suicide bomber on Sunday blew herself at a church in Nigeria, killing five.
Of late, Boko Haram has been deploying more and more female suicide bombers to carry out attacks in Nigeria.
Only last Friday, six women suicide bombers detonated their explosives, killing several at Zabamari Muna village outside Maiduguri, the biggest city in northeast Nigeria and the birthplace of Boko Haram.
Sunday’s attack at Redeemed Christian Church of God in Potiskum, the largest city in northeastern Yobe state, came as people had gathered at the evangelical Christian church service.
Police rushed to the site as wailing women and stunned men wandered around the wreckage of smashed bricks and twisted zinc sheets blown off the church roof. One congregant said the blast came from a woman in the congregation. She was too scared to give her name.
It is the latest bombing in a string of attacks blamed on Islamic extremist group Boko Haram that’s killed some 200 people in the past week.
Nearly 100 men and boys praying in mosques were gunned down on Wednesday, and a local official said Sunday that 21 more bodies have been recovered from burnt-out houses since then.
