Christian youths killed at least 10 people in reprisal attacks after a suspected suicide bomber hit a Catholic church in the central Nigerian city of Jos on Sunday, killing three people, authorities said. "The situation is bad," Sati Dakwat, health commissioner for Jos, told Reuters. "Several were killed in the reprisal attacks, more than 10."
A Reuters reporter at the scene of the church bombing was unable to gain access, as the police had cordoned off the area around Finber's Catholic Church in the Rayfield suburb of Jos. "We haven't got actual figures of injured yet, but at least three people have been confirmed dead by our men attending the scene of the blast," the Jos coordinator for the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) Al Hassan Aliyu said.
But he later added that "the situation is calm now", after the initial reprisals by Christian youths. Earlier NEMA called it a suspected suicide bombing, but Aliyu said this was not yet confirmed.
Islamist sect Boko Haram has claimed responsibility for a wave of bomb attacks on churches across Nigeria since Christmas Day. The bombing campaign has raised fears that the group is trying to ignite sectarian conflict in Africa's most populous country, split roughly evenly between Christians and Muslims.
In the past decade Jos has become the main flashpoint for tensions between Nigeria's Christian and Muslim communities. Bombers have targeted its churches many times since Christmas.