AFRICA/NIGERIA - Massacre of Jos: "the Boy Scouts prevented the car bomb to pounce upon the faithful in church," says Archbishop

Jos (Agenzia Fides) - The Boy Scouts managed to prevent the suicide attack on Sunday, March 11 against the church in St. Finbarr, in Jos, capital of Plateau State, in the west of Nigeria which could have had even more serious consequences. "Yesterday morning, the Boy Scouts were at the gate of the parish when the car bomb arrived with the suicide bomber inside. They stopped and started to ask him some questions. At that point there was an explosion. It was 10.25 and the Mass was still in progress" says to Fides His Exc. Mgr. Ignatius Ayau Kaigama, Archbishop of Jos.
We ask the Archbishop if there is news about the identity of the bombers. "We suspect the members of Boko Haram, but no one at the moment, can say if the criminals who committed the attack yesterday are locals or come from elsewhere", said Mgr. Kaigama.
According to media reports, when the news of the attack spread to cities, there were incidents of retaliation on behalf of young Christians against some areas populated by Muslims. The victims were a dozen.
The area of Jos lives a fragile ethnic and religious balance. For years there have been episodes of intra-community violence between the local population (mostly Christian and sedentary) and populations from the north (mostly Muslim and in several cases nomads). We ask Mgr. Kaigama if, in his opinion, there is a strategy to break the fragile balance between the different communities of the area. "I just ask myself– he answers - what is the purpose that these people intend to achieve by attacking churches. I remember that only two weeks ago, always in Jos, a Protestant church was hit in a similar way". (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides 12/03/2012)