Mwanaukweli
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- May 18, 2007
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An explosion last night ripped through a Catholic church during Christmas Mass near Nigeria's capital, killing at least 28 people.
Boko Haram, a radical Muslim sect waging an increasingly sophisticated sectarian fight claimed the attack and another bombing in the restive city of Jos, as explosions also struck the nation's northeast.
Three more explosions were reported early today including two yesterday in the city of Damaturu and another targeting a church on Christmas Eve in Gadaka.
The explosions come amid a wave of attacks in Nigeria by Boko Haram, which has been blamed for at least 465 killings this year alone. Last year a series of Christmas Eve bombings in Jos that were claimed by the militants killed at least 32 people and wounded 74.
The first explosion struck St Theresa Catholic Church in Madalla, a town in Niger state close to the capital, Abuja. Rescue workers recovered at least 25 bodies from the church and officials continued to tally the wounded, who were taken to various hospitals.
Nigeria's National Emergency Management Agency acknowledged it didn't have enough ambulances to help the wounded.
Agency co-ordinator Slaku Luguard said an angry crowd which gathered at the blast site hampered rescue efforts as they refused to allow rescue workers inside.
"We're trying to calm the situation," he said.
"There are some angry people around trying to cause problems."
In Jos, a second explosion struck near a church of the Mountain of Fire and Miracles Ministries.
A government spokesman said gunmen later opened fire on police guarding the area, wounding an officer. Two other locally made explosives were found in a nearby building and disarmed, he said.
"The military are here on ground and have taken control over the entire place."
After the bombings, a Boko Haram spokesman using the nom de guerre Abul-Qaqa claimed responsibility for the attacks in an interview with The Daily Trust, the newspaper of record across Nigeria's Muslim north. The sect has used the newspaper in the past to communicate with public.
The city of Jos is located on the dividing line between Nigeria's predominantly Christian south and Muslim north.
Thousands have died in communal clashes there over the last decade.
Several days of fighting in the northeast between the sect and security forces had already killed at least 61 people, authorities said.
In the last year, Boko Haram has carried out increasingly bloody attacks in its campaign to implement strict sharia across Nigeria, a nation of more than 160 million people.
Boko Haram claimed responsibility for a November 4 attack on Damaturu, Yobe state's capital, that killed more than 100 people.
The group also claimed the August 24 suicide car bombing of the UN headquarters in Nigeria's capital that killed 24 people and wounded 116 others.
AP