Suicide bomber kills three outside church

A suicide car bomber detonated his explosives outside a church yesterday, killing three people and wounding 38 others in a restive central Nigerian city that has seen hundreds die in religious and ethnic violence.

The explosion struck the main headquarters of the Church of Christ in Nigeria during its early morning service, Plateau state spokesman Pam Ayuba said. The attack in Jos killed a woman, and a father and his child near the explosion, Ms Ayuba said.

The bomber apparently ran down the woman while racing his car towards the church compound, said Mark Lipdo, a coordinator for a Christian group called the Stefanos Foundation.

The blast left shattered glass all over the church compound as an angry crowd of youths began smashing the windows of cars passing by the scene, witnesses said. Emergency officials took 38 people to hospitals for treatment.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, though a radical Islamist sect known as Boko Haram has launched increasingly bloody attacks across Nigeria, including attacks on churches.

A Christmas Day bombing of a Catholic church that left at least 44 dead was claimed by the sect in Madalla, a town just outside the country’s capital of Abuja.

The group also claimed responsibility for bomb attacks on Christmas Eve that struck Jos, killing as many as 80 people.

The government of the Plateau state 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 recent decades.