Christmas Day church blasts in Nigeria kill 28

---

MADALLA, Dec 25 (AFP): Two explosions near churches during Christmas Day services in Nigeria, including one outside the country's capital, killed at least 28 people amid spiralling violence blamed on an Islamist group. The suspected attacks stoked fear and anger in Africa's most populous nation, which has been hit by scores of bombings and shootings attributed to Islamist group Boko Haram, with authorities seemingly unable to stop them. The area around the scene of the blast outside the capital Abuja, which killed at least 27, degenerated into chaos after the explosion, with angry youths starting fires and threatening to attack a nearby police station. Police shot into the air to disperse them and closed a major highway. Emergency officials called for more ambulances as rescuers sought to evacuate the dead and wounded, and calm later returned to the area. In a swift response, a Vatican spokesman condemned that attack as an act of "blind hatred" which sought "to arouse and feed even more hatred and confusion." A bomb blast later hit outside an evangelical church hundreds of miles away in the central city of Jos, killing a policeman, according to a spokesman for the governor.