At least 38 killed in Christmas Eve attacks in Nigeria

Multiple explosions in central Nigeria have killed 32 people and six others died in attacks by Muslim sect members on two churches in the north, officials said yesterday.

Police spokesman Mohammed Lerama said that 32 people died and at least 74 were injured in four bomb blasts on Friday night that went off in close succession in different parts of Jos in central Nigeria – a region violently divided between Christians and Muslims.

Manasie Phampe, the Red Cross secretary in Jos, gave slightly different figures and said that 52 people were injured, and that some of the injured were in intensive care at the Jos University Teaching Hospital.

“We have commenced investigations and are making efforts to calm people down,” said Lerama.

Religious violence has claimed over 500 lives this year in Jos and neighboring towns and villages, but the situation was believed to have calmed down.

Nigeria, a country of 150 million people, is almost evenly split between Muslims in the north and the predominantly Christian south. The blasts happened in central Nigeria, in the nation’s ‘middle belt’, where dozens of ethnic groups vie for control of fertile lands.

The violence, though fractured across religious lines, often has more to do with local politics, economics and rights to grazing lands.

The government of Plateau State, where Jos is the capital, is controlled by Christian politicians who have blocked Muslims from being legally recognised as citizens. That has locked many out of prized government jobs in a region where the tourism industry and tin mining have collapsed in the last decades.

“What has happened on the eve of Christmas is unfortunate, especially at this time when we want to ensure peace and security in the state,” said Gregory Yenlong, the state commissioner for information. He said that nobody had claimed responsibility for Friday’s attacks in Jos.

This is the first major attack in Jos since the Plateau State government lifted a curfew on May 20. The curfew had first been imposed in November 2008 during postelection violence but it was extended in January following clashes between Christian and Muslim groups.

More than 300 people – mostly Muslim – were killed in the January violence in Jos and surrounding villages.

The curfew improved the security within a city that has hosted numerous peace conferences to address the violence but the killings continued outside.

Twelve people were gruesomely murdered in March in a small Christian village and there are still regular attacks outside Jos.

Also on Friday, six people died in attacks on two churches in Nigeria’s northern region.

State Police chief Mohammed Abubakar said members of the Muslim sect, Boko Haram, attacked two churches at opposite ends of Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state, late Christmas Eve.

Danjuma Akawu, secretary of Victory Baptist Church, said about 30 men attacked his church on Christmas Eve, killing five people, including the pastor, two choir members rehearsing for a late-night carol service and two passersby who were attacked by the mob.