Suicide attacks on two predominantly Christian communities in
northeast Nigeria today and on Wednesday (Jan. 27) left at least 26 persons
dead and dozens of others injured, sources said.
At noon today a suicide bomber suspected to have been sent
by the Islamic extremist Boko Haram group detonated explosives in a crowded
market in Gombi, Adamawa state, killing at least eight people, sources said.
Boko Haram, which seeks to impose sharia (Islamic law) throughout Nigeria, has
continued to carry out terrorist attacks since losing territory to the Nigerian
military last year.
“Some members of our church who escaped the attack in the
market said they saw eight dead bodies,
while about 28 others were injured,”
the Rev. Bitrus Njidda, pastor of the Church of the Brethren in Nigeria (EYN)
in the town, told Morning Star News.
The Red Cross reported eight persons killed and 25 wounded
in the bombing, said to have been carried out by a teenage boy.
Gombi was one of several Christian communities taken over by
Boko Haram, and many of the town’s displaced Christians are EYN members still
living in camps for internally displaced people in other parts of the country,
the pastor said. Though the Nigerian military hs since reclaimed Gombi, many of
these displaced Christians have refused to return to the town due to fear of
terrorists.
In Chibok, Borno state, suicide bombers suspected to have
been sent by Boko Haram bombed a crowded market on Wednesday (Jan. 27), killing
at least 17 civilians and a soldier and injuring at least 30 others, sources
said. Following the government troop recovery of the town, the market had
reopened that day for the first time since Boko Haram took over Chibok two
years ago, area Christians said.
Boko Haram kidnapped more than 300 high school girls in
Chibok in April 2014 because of its mainly Christian population. Of the girls
kidnapped since the Islamic extremist rebels seized the town two years ago, 219
remain missing.
Six suicide bombers reportedly entered Chibok on Wednesday,
and The AP reported a military spokesman said that two of them were disguised
as women.
Ayuba Ali, a resident of Chibok town, told Morning Star News
that more than 15 persons lost their lives and another 30 were injured in the
attack carried out in three locations in the town.
“Twenty-one wounded people have already been taken to Askira
Uba General Hospital,” Ali said by phone. “Chibok is still not safe for
displaced persons to return to.”
Njidda, who was a pastor and EYN church secretary in Chibok
District before his transfer to Gombi, told Morning Star News that reports
reaching him from Chibok indicate that members of the church were affected.
“While I was pastoring the church there,” he added, “I had
to bury more than 45 members of my church who were killed by Boko Haram
Islamists in a single day. It is an incident I cannot forget in my life.”
The first explosion in Chibok reportedly hit at a military
checkpoint, where a soldier was wounded and later succumbed to his injuries. At
the crowded market, a woman that authorities were about to search blew herself
up, killing several people and wounding a commander, according to The AP.
Veiled women or men dressed as women detonated other explosives at the market,
it reported.
Recently Boko Haram, which originated in Maiduguri, Borno
state and has pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, has increasingly used
child and adult suicide bombers who may have been captured by the terrorist
group. The bombers may not be carrying out the atrocities willingly; some
explosives have been detonated remotely, a military bomb expert has told The
AP.
Boko Haram launched a violent campaign in 2009 that has
killed an estimated 17,000 to 20,000 people and forced more than 2.5 million to
flee their homes. Muhammadu Buhari, president of the 51-percent Christian and
45-percent Muslim country, last month declared that Boko Haram had been
“technically” defeated
Source: Christian Headlines
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