Islamists Burn Church In Maiduguri
Unidentified arsonists burnt a church in a northern Nigerian city where Islamists torched two churches and killed six worshippers on Christmas Eve last month, police said on Monday.
There were no casualties in the weekend attack against the pentecostal church in Maiduguri.
“There was an attack on Victory Christ Church in the city by unknown arsonists Saturday night who set a fire on the church that gutted a section of it before the fire was put out by residents,” state police spokesman, Lawal Abdullahi said.
“No one was hurt in the attack as there were no worshippers in the church at the time,” Abdullahi said on the phone from Maiduguri.
Police have made no arrests yet in connection with the attack but said they have started investigations.
An Islamist sect popularly known as Boko Haram claimed responsibility for the Christmas Eve church attacks in the city as well as multiple bombings in the central city of Jos where 80 people died as a result of the attack and reprisals that followed.
The sect, which launched an uprising in Nigeria last year, has previously said it wanted to be known as Jamaatu Ahlus-Sunnah Lidda Awati Wal Jihad.
Police last week said they had arrested 92 suspected Boko Haram members, including a man in his 70s they believe is the main financier of the groups’Â activities.
While investigations are still underway, authorities said a bomb blast at a crowded open-air bar and eatery in a market adjacent to military barracks in the capital Abuja, bore the hallmarks of the Christmas Eve attacks in Jos.
Comments