THE Bauchi State chapter of the Christian Association has accused soldiers of killing worshippers after a suicide bombers attacked the Living Faith Church and Harvest Field Church on Sunday.
CAN also disputed the casualty figure given by the police in last Sunday’s suicide bombing that occurred at Living Faith and Harvest field churches in Yelwa area of Bauchi metropolis.
While the police put the casualty figure at 12, CAN said no fewer than 20 people died in the incident.
He alleged that the police did not take into account the eight people who were shot by soldiers.
The association also said 42 sustained injuries following the suicide bomb attack
Addressing a press conference in Bauchi on Monday, the state CAN chairman, Rev Lawi Pokti said, “Out of 20 people that were confirmed dead, 12 died as a result of bomb blast while eight were shot dead by the military who went to the blast site to maintain law and order.
“Fourty five persons have been confirmed wounded out of which 25 were injured by bomb blast while 20 sustained various degrees of injuries from the gun shots from the military.
“We condemn in strong term this dastardly act and see it as evil and satanic excited by devilish terrorist who paraded themselves under the canopy of Islam. We strongly declare it as a crime against humanity.”
He added, “As much as the Christian church appreciates the efforts of the Government in quick response to the site of the incident and the prompt attention given to the wounded by taken them to the teaching hospital for emergency help, we however condemn in strong terms the extra judicial killings. Women and children sustained various degrees of injuries from the military bullets. As far as a civilised world is concerned, we see this act as extra judicial killing and unfortunate worthy of all remorse by the Nigerian Army.
Pokti said the security operatives had no moral and ethical justification to open fire on the women and youth, who came out to mourn their slain loved ones adding.
“The Nigerian Army should claim full responsibility and also compensate all the victims of this extra judicial killings,” he said.
Meanwhile, the umbrella body of Muslims, Jama’atu Nasril Islam(I)and the Christian Association of Nigeria in the North, in Kaduna on Monday condemned the bomb blast on two Churches in Bauchi on Sunday which claimed 12 lives and the destruction of properties.
While the Northern CAN described the attacks on the Churches as barbaric, satanic,evil and unacceptable to Christians and any sound mind, the JNI in reaction to the incident said the attack on the two worship places was unacceptable, saying any attack on worship places was against the tenets of Islam.
The Public Relations Officers of the Christian body, Mr. Sunday Oibe, in a statement commended the efforts of the Federal Government and security agencies at stamping out terrorism and in particular the Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria.
Nigerian soldiers in the city of Maiduguri. An army chief claimed that none of his troops were injured but many Boko Haram members died in an operation against the sect in the city. Photograph: Sunday Alamba/AP
Nineteen people were killed during clashes with Islamist insurgents in north-eastern Nigeria on Tuesday, officials said.
The violence, which authorities blamed on the radical Boko Haram sect, hit the cities of Kano and Maiduguri, where the group once had its main mosque.
The heaviest fighting was in Maiduguri, where soldiers fired on suspected sect members for several hours and bomb blasts echoed across the city, witnesses said.
An army spokesman, Colonel Victor Ebhaleme, said on Tuesday night that all 16 of those killed were "Boko Haram terrorists" and that the military suffered no casualties.
Soldiers also recovered weapons and ammunition in the operation, which targeted areas authorities believed served as hideouts for the sect in the city, Ebhaleme said.
However, a man who lives in the neighbourhood where the fighting took place said some civilians had been struck by stray bullets in the fighting.
"I almost got home, but I saw soldiers shooting and I had to run back," the man said. He spoke on condition of anonymity as he feared angering either the military or Boko Haram.
The crowded neighbourhood, called Lawan Bukar, is close to the palace of the region's traditional ruler, the Shehu of Borno.
It was also the site of a recent attack by suspected Boko Haram members in which two civilians were beheaded and a politician shot dead.
In Kano, Boko Haram suspects shot and killed a retired senior federal policeman and two other officers.
Nigeria faces a growing wave of sectarian violence carried out by Boko Haram. The sect's name translates as "Western education is sacrilege" in the Hausa language of Nigeria's predominantly Muslim north.
The sect has been blamed for killing more than 560 people this year alone, according to the Associated Press. Targets have included churches, often attacked by suicide car bombers.
Boko Haram, which speaks to journalists through telephone conference calls at times of its choosing, could not be reached for comment on Tuesday.
The sect most recently claimed responsibility for a suicide car bombing at a church in the northern state of Bauchi on Sunday. That attack killed at least 15 people and wounded dozens more.
Nigeria, a nation of 160 million people, is divided between the largely Muslim north and the Christian south.
Boko Haram attacks have inflamed tensions between the two religions, though many in the two faiths live peacefully with each other and intermarry.
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