Approximately 20 people were killed in an attack on a church service in northern Nigeria this past weekend. The attackers threw bombs and fired guns into the crowd as the congregation tried to run, officials and witnesses said. The service was being held on the campus of Bayero University in the city of Kano. Witnesses said the attackers arrived in a car and two motorcycles and caused a stampede among the worshippers with explosions and gunfire. Officials could not provide a casualty toll but correspondents counted six bodies near the worship site and at least another twelve on the side of the road next to the university.
Google News said there was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, but it appeared to be the work of Boko Haram, an Islamic group who had orchestrated an attack in Kano in January that took the lives of 185 people as well as an bombing on a church that killed 44 people near Abuja. When asked whether more dialogue will bring the violence to an end in Nigeria, President Goodluck Jonathan said he planned to “exploit every means possible to bring this to an end.”
