13 die as lightning strikes mosque

 lightning

DHAKA (AFP) – At least 13 Muslim worshippers were killed and 15 hurt when lightning struck a mosque in a remote village in northeast Bangladesh as they held special Ramadan prayers, police said on Saturday.

The imam was among those instantly killed when a lightning bolt hit the tin-and-thatch building at Saraswatipur village, about 200 kilometres (125 miles) from the capital Dhaka, late on Friday.

The lightning appeared to “electrify” the mosque after hitting a rooftop microphone being run on power from a car battery, local council member Abul Kalam told AFP by telephone.

About 35 people from the village in the lake district of Sunamganj were holding prayers known as taraweeh — offered during the holy fasting month of Ramadan — at the time, police chief Sunamganj said.

“All 13, including the imam, died on the spot. The bodies and faces of some of the victims were burnt,” Alam told AFP, adding six of the injured were hospitalised.

Locals had turned the flimsy structure into a mosque because access to the village’s more substantial concrete-roofed mosque had been made difficult due to recent heavy rains that have swollen the Saraswati river.

Villagers rushed to help after hearing cries, Kalam said.

“It was a terrible scene. Dozens were lying on the floor — some dead, others writhing in pain,” he said, adding most of the victims were young men in their 20s and 3Os.

“We took the injured in three boats and headed to hospital in Dharmapasa”, the closest big town, he said. “But it took hours to get there,” he added.

Lightning is a major threat in Sunamganj, home to some of Bangladesh’s biggest lakes. Most lightning strikes occur during the monsoon season between June and September when the district receives huge amounts of rainfall.

Across the South Asian country, hundreds of people are killed by lightning strikes every year, with most dying while attempting to save rice crops from flooding.

Bangladeshi environmentalists blame global warming, which has unleashed a growing number of tropical storms, for the increase in the frequency, devastation and deaths caused by lightning strikes in recent years.

In May last year, at least 29 people were killed — most of them farmers who were harvesting rice — and dozens injured when a series of lightning strikes hit several districts in a single day.

 

Eight killed as gunmen open fire on worshippers

Mohammed Abubakar

KANO (AFP) – A gun battle near a mosque in the northern city of Kano and two other shootings left at least eight people dead on Sunday in the latest violence to hit the area, authorities said.

It was not clear who was behind the attacks in the city of Kano, the largest in the mainly Muslim north, but they resembled similar incidents in the past blamed on Islamist militant group Boko Haram.

The deadliest occurred on Sunday night when gunmen opened fire in an area around a mosque while Muslims were observing Ramadan prayers and where a police team was already deployed to protect worshippers, a senior police official said.

Police and the attackers exchanged fire and one of the assailants was killed when his own explosive device went off.

Three other gunmen were shot dead by police, according to the official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“The rest fled, abandoning their car and three motorcycles they came with,” the official said, adding that it was not clear whether police or the mosque was the target of the initial attack.

Earlier in the day, gunmen on a motorcycle opened fire on the car of a Nigerian air force officer, killing the driver and an aide, while two other people were killed in a nearby neighbourhood, authorities said.

“A car of one of our officers came under attack this morning,” Air Commodore Sani Ahmed said.

“The officer’s driver and his orderly were travelling out of town, but as they reached an area called Yan-Lemo, two gunmen on a motorcycle opened fire on the car, killing the two personnel.”

The officer was not in the car at the time, he said.

In a similar incident earlier in the day, two gunmen on a motorcycle shot dead two people outside their house in a nearby neighourhood, said police spokesman Rilwanu Dutse.

A police source said the victims were from the mainly Christian Igbo ethnic group.

Boko Haram has carried out scores of bombings and shootings in their insurgency in the north of Africa’s most populous nation that has left hundreds dead.