AFRICA/NIGERIA - Explosion on the border with Cameroon causes 30 deaths

Abuja (Agenzia Fides) - An explosion ripped through a crowded market on a bridge on Nigeria’s border with Cameroon on Monday, January 6, killing at least 30 people and injuring many others.
According to the Cameroonian authorities, the explosion was not due to a terrorist attack but to the imprudence of some young people who were trying to sell an unexploded grenade found fortuitously. Officials are investigating the origins of the explosive device, but it is certainly either from the military fighting Boko Haram extremists in the region or from the Islamic extremist group itself.
Among the killings attributed to Boko Haram, which occurred recently in the state of Borno, there is that of a couple who were about to get married, Martha Bulus and her partner. According to Fr. Francis Arinse, Director of the Social Communications of the diocese of Maiduguri, on December 26 the couple together with other people was traveling from Maiduguri to the wedding venue, scheduled for December 31, when they were intercepted by a group of terrorists near Gwoza. The future bride, spouse and their relatives and friends were beheaded on the spot by the men of Boko Haram.
Arinse recalled that there had been a series of kidnappings in the area. Press sources reported that the Islamic State group had released a video on December 26 showing the beheading of 10 Christians. The Islamic State said the beheadings are the response to the killing of its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghadi in Syria in late October.
The Nigerian authorities raised the alert after the killing of Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the Al Qods brigades of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, in Iraq on 3 January. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides, 7/1/2020)

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