Kano - Kano on Sunday cancelled celebrations to
mark the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan
after two bomb attacks blamed onBoko Haram.
At least five people were killed and eight were injured
in a bomb attack on a Catholic church, police said.
The attack came shortly after the end of mass at the
Saint Charles Catholic church, police spokesman
Frank Mba told AFP.
"We suspect an IED (improvised explosive device)
that was thrown from across the road" at the church
in Kano's Sabon Gari district, which has previously
been targeted by Boko Haram, he added.
Also in Kano on Sunday, a woman suicide bomber
blew herself up outside a university after police
prevented her from carrying out an attack, injuring
five officers, Mba said.
"A female suicide bomber was isolated as she was
walking towards the gate of the university," he said,
adding that she had hidden the bomb under her "long
black hijab".
"Police on duty isolated her" because she was
behaving strangely, and were about to ask a female
colleague to frisk the woman when she detonated the
bomb, he added.
Police also said they had made safe a car bomb rigged
to blow via remote control near a mosque and the
home of a prominent Kano sheikh on Saturday.
"The police were alerted by some vigilant residents
last night," said Kano police spokesman Musa Magaji
Majia. "Our bomb disposal personnel succeeded in
defusing the IED."
Kano has been hit by two attacks blamed on Boko
Haram in recent months, including a bomb blast at a
public health college which killed at least eight last
month.
On May 19, a suicide car bomb attack in Sabon Gari
left at least four people dead, including a young girl,
in the same area where 12 were killed by four strong
explosions a year ago.
The worsening violence on Sunday prompted Kano's
emir to cancel Eid festivities -- marking the end of the
holy Muslim month of Ramadan -- which were due to
begin next week.
"Given the critical situation we are in, the royal
highness (of Kano state, Emir Sanusi Lamido Sanusi)
has suspended all festivities associated with the
eminence, including the Durbar and other traditional
events that are held during the Eid festival," an aide
to the emir, Aminu Ado Bayero, told AFP.