A suicide bomber struck near a church in the northern Nigerian city
of Bauchi on Sunday, killing and wounding several people, said police
and the National Emergency Management Agency.
The agency said "a
suicide bomber detonated an explosive device close to a worship centre
in Wunti Area of Bauchi State. Rescuers have evacuated the dead and
injured... Casualty figure cannot be determined now."
A Red Cross official said the target was St. John's Catholic Church.Bauchi
state police spokesman Mohammed Hassan told AFP that several people had
"lost their lives". He declined to give a figure but said that he and
other officers were at a Bauchi hospital assessing the casualties.
Bauchi
has previously been targetted by the radical Islamist group Boko Haram,
blamed for more than 1,400 deaths in Nigeria since 2010.A
suicide bomber who tried to drive an explosives-packed truck into a
church in the city on June 3 killed at least 15 people and wounded
dozens. The attack was later claimed by Boko Haram.
Suicide blasts
targetting Christian Sunday services were a near weekly occurrence in
Nigeria earlier this year, but the violence had ebbed recently.
Boko
Haram has said it wants to create an Islamic state in the country's
mainly Muslim north, but its demands have varied widely since the group
relaunched its insurgency in 2010.
