Gunmen opened fire on a church service in the northeast Nigerian village of Attangara, killing nine people, police and a witness said on Monday.
The village is in the Gwoza hills, near the Cameroon border, and the main stronghold of radical Islamist sect Boko Haram which has killed civilians on an almost daily basis since stepping up its campaign of violence earlier this year.
“As we were holding service, we started hearing gunshots and everybody fled, some through the windows, and ran into the bush,” resident Matha Yohana said of Sunday’s attack. A police source said nine were killed in the assault.
“More than 10 of them were riding motorcycles and one car,” she said, adding some local vigilantes had pursued the attackers, killing four of them and detaining three.
Nigeria’s military said on Monday it had arrested a suspect it believes was behind a bomb attack that killed 18 people watching football on television in the northeast the previous day.
There has been no claim of responsibility for the blast that also wounded 19 people in Kabang town in Adamawa state, a stronghold of Islamist militant group Boko Haram whose struggle for an Islamic state is centred in the northeast.
