ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — At least 24 worshipers, including four children, were injured in Nigeria’s northern Kano state after a man attacked the mosque where they were worshiping on Wednesday morning, resulting in an explosion, he said. the police.
The suspect, a 38-year-old resident of the area, confessed that he attacked the mosque in Kano’s remote Gadan village “purely out of hostility following protracted family disagreements,” police spokesman Abdullahi Haruna said in a statement.
The incident caused panic in Kano, Nigeria’s largest northern state, where there have been periodic religious-related riots over the years, sometimes resulting in violence.
Haruna said preliminary forensic analysis suggested a gasoline explosion, but a full investigation was still underway.
Police also cordoned off the scene while the injured were rushed to a hospital in the state capital.
The Daily Trust newspaper reported that worshipers were locked inside the mosque, making it difficult to escape the explosion. He said the suspect had attacked people in the area in the past over the same family dispute.
“The disagreement (was) about sharing the inheritance that those he claimed to have betrayed him were in the mosque at that time and he did this so that his voice would be heard,” the police statement said.
