New Year’s Day brought terror to Nigeria when a suicide bomber blew himself up outside of a Christian church in the northeast region of the country Thursday, injuring several people.
This attack came only a few hours after a female suicide bomber — allegedly wearing a hijab — was killed near a Nigerian military barracks in the same town of Gombe, CNN reports.
The church assailant came to the location by motorcycle around 9 a.m. He was stopped by church volunteers at a barricade outside of the place of worship, and set off his explosives after engaging in a heated argument with those volunteers.
“Some people nearby were injured from the blast but none of the injuries are life-threatening,” an eyewitness told CNN.
Northeastern Nigeria is a hotbed of activity for the notorious Boko Haram, and neighboring areas of Gombe have seen several brutal attacks from the Islamic terrorist group recently, according to Al-Jazeera. In addition to the two suicide bomb attacks, another city in the same region witnessed a bus explosion that killed seven on Wednesday. According to eyewitness reports given to Agence France-Press, the men killed on the bus were Boko Haram militants on their way to carry out attacks.
Boko Haram is known to use female suicide bombers as a part of their arsenal of terror, though it is not yet confirmed if they are the group responsible for these New Year attacks.
Haram gained worldwide infamy in 2014 after they kidnapped over 200 girls from a Nigerian school and forced them into marriage.