Irish priest decries bomb attack on Nigerian parish

An Irish priest has spoken of his shock after several of his parishioners were killed in a suicide bomb attack on his Church after Sunday Mass by Islamic fundamentalist group Boko Haram.

Fr Tom Treacy, Parish Priest of St Charles Church, No Man’s Land in Kano, the largest city in Nigeria’s north, said the parish community was devastated by the attack which killed seven people and left up to 19 injured.

The Galway native and SMA missionary, who is currently in Ireland on leave, said he is eager now to return to Kano to be with his parishioners at this difficult time.

“I’m greatly concerned by the attack and my heart is with those who were bereaved or injured by the bombing. I’m eager to get back at this stage,” he said.

Despite his initial shock at hearing the news, Fr Treacy admitted he had been “fearing such an attack for some time”.

Terrorist

The attack at the church is the third terrorist incident in Kano in recent times. Two previous attempts to attack a mosque and a university were thwarted by the police in the city.

“We are very security conscious at all times but there is no way of completely preventing an attack of this kind. I just hope something like this won’t happen again,” he said.

Fr Treacy praised the efforts of the soldier assigned to guard the church, who lost his life in the blast preventing the bomber reaching the gate of the church compound.

“We have great security which really helped to contain the incident. It could have been much worse,” he noted.

Another Irish priest who served at the church in Kano in 2008, condemned the attack as “awful”. Galway-based Fr Alan Burke said he was “deeply saddened to hear that the church had been targeted and that so many people lost their lives”.

“It is an awful atrocity,” he said.

Fundraising

The attack comes at a difficult time for the parish which had been fundraising to acquire an adjoining property to help expand the parish social services. Some of the funds will now be diverted to repair the bomb damage and help those affected by the atrocity.

Since 2009, Boko Haram has been using increasingly violent methods to realise its dream of an Islamic state in Nigeria. Operating predominately from the country’s north-east, the group has attacked moderate Muslims and Christian communities in its campaign. It gained further notoriety in April of this year when it kidnapped over 200 girls from Chibok in the country’s east.