Nigeria's Boko Haram 'bombed Kaduna churches'
The bombing of three churches led to reprisal attacks Radical Islamist group Boko Haram has said it was behind Sunday's suicide bombings of three churches in the northern Nigerian state of Kaduna.
The blasts were in revenge for what it said were previous Christian "atrocities" against Muslims, the group said in an email sent to local media.
At least 50 people were killed in the bombings and reprisal killings, the Red Cross says.
Boko Haram has carried out a series of deadly attacks in the past two years.
Retaliatory attacksThe Red Cross says another 131 people were injured by the violence - the third weekend in a row in which Boko Haram has carried out bombings on churches.
Two of Sunday's blasts happened in the Wusasa and Sabon-Gari districts of the town of Zaria and a third hit the nearby city of Kaduna, the state capital.
Rioting broke out in different parts of Kaduna state as youth took to the streets in anger and attacked Muslims.
BBC Nigeria correspondent Will Ross in Lagos says the church bombings are a serious threat to the stability of Nigeria because existing religious divisions mean there is a danger of retaliatory attacks spiralling out of control.
Kaduna lies on the dividing line between Nigeria's largely Christian south and mainly Muslim north.
It is one of the areas where conflict between rival religious and ethnic groups has claimed many hundreds of lives.
Kaduna state governor Patrick Yakowa told the BBC the weekend's attacks were "sad and disheartening" and a blow to government efforts to promote peace and reconciliation between Christians and Muslims.
In an emailed statement in the local Hausa language, Boko Haram spokesman Abul-Qaqa said: "Allah has given us victory in the attacks we launched today against churches in Kaduna and Zaria towns which resulted in the deaths of many Christians and security personnel."
The group justified the weekend attacks on churches by saying they were carried out in revenge for what it described as government-backed killings of Muslims in central Nigeria during earlier bouts of violence.
Christians were warned to "either embrace Islam or... never have peace of mind," the statement said.
A 24-hour curfew has now been relaxed to allow people to move about in the hours of daylight, but correspondents say there is still a heavy military presence.
The Nigerian army says it has recovered a mobile phone that belonged to one of the suicide bombers.
Boko Haram - which means "Western education is forbidden" - wants to impose strict Muslim law across Nigeria.
Since 2009, it has targeted police stations and other government buildings, churches and schools.
Hundreds of people have died in the attacks, and analysts suggest the group is trying to trigger clashes between Christians and Muslims.
52 killed in Nigerian religious riots
REUTERS
Monday 18 June 2012
KADUNA: At least 52 people were killed in religious rioting sparked by three suicide bombings against churches in northern Nigeria, where the dead were piled up yesterday in mortuaries and cemeteries in the city of Kaduna.
A Reuters' reporter visited two hospitals in Kaduna, where the rioting broke out on Sunday after suicide car bombers attacked three churches in northern Nigeria, killing at least 19 people and wounding dozens.
Christian youths had set up roadblocks and dragged Muslims from cars or motorbikes and killed them, witnesses said.
Although there has been no immediate claim of responsibility for Sunday's church bombings, militant group Boko Haram, which is waging an insurgency in the northeast against President Goodluck Jonathan's government, had claimed deadly church attacks on the previous two Sundays, as well as others.
Corpses littered the ground in parts of the city. They were piled one on top of the other in an old cemetery, some charred. A soldier guarding the site said there were at least 30 bodies of people killed in the violence at that site.
They had been dragged to the secluded cemetery, in a majority Christian neighbourhood, by the mobs, he said.
"Some people were killed and dumped down wells. We've had violence before, but this is the worst I've seen," he said.
A 24-hour curfew imposed by the Kaduna state government on Sunday largely succeeded in restoring order, residents said.
The violence stoked fears of wider sectarian conflict in Nigeria, an OPEC member and Africa's top oil producer that houses the world's largest equal mix of Christians and Muslims.
In the St Gerald Hospital, spokesman Sunday Aliyu confirmed that there were 40 dead bodies in the hospital morgue and 72 being treated for burns and other wounds.
At Barau Dikko Hospital, Matron Hassana Garba confirmed 12 dead bodies and two injured people receiving treatment.
Mohammed Inuwa said he was lucky to escape with his life. He hid in a bush when rampaging Christian youths pulled Muslim motorcyclists from their vehicles and beat them to death. "They were mostly killing okada riders (motorbike taxis). I was hiding in the bush while all this was going on. If they saw me, that would be it," the second-hand clothes merchant said, estimating 15 people were killed by the place he was hiding.
Boko Haram church bombings seem calculated to trigger wider sectarian strife, often striking at the heart of Nigeria's volatile "Middle Belt", where the mostly Christian south and Muslim north meet
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