Six children and another person were injured on Tuesday night when assailants threw a homemade bomb in the midst of about 100 kids taking lessons at an Islamic school in Sapele, Delta State, witnesses and police said.The children had gathered for a class around 9.30pm in the predominantly Christian city when the attackers drove by and hurled the explosives, causing a thunderous blast initially mistaken for fireworks, residents said.'Girl-pupils sit on one side while the boys sit separately. At around 9:30 pm when the pupils were learning in the night, a car drove by and they threw two objects at the children. One of the objects fell in the middle of the female pupils and suddenly exploded,' Deputy Imam of Sapele mosque, Malam Ibrahim Imam, told Daily Trust by telephone yesterday.'The second one did not explode until security agents arrived at the scene and took it away. A total of six girls got injured. We evaluated all the children immediately. We took the six injured to hospital, two were treated and discharged that same night. One girl that had fracture on her leg is now at Delta State University Teaching Hospital, Ogara. Three other girls are on admission at the Central Hospital in Sapele,' he added.The Delta State Police Command confirmed the attack.'Some men driving in a (Toyota) Camry car threw a low capacity explosive into a building where an Arabic class was taking place,' police spokesman for the state Charles Muka said by telephone, quoted by Reuters news agency.'Children aged between four and nine were taking a lesson. Six children were injured and one adult (was),' he added.The incident came two days after the Christmas Day bombings that killed dozens of people and claimed by the Boko Haram sect.No one took responsibility for the Tuesday attack in Sapele, which happened weeks after a similar bombing of a mosque in the same city.On December 10, an explosion rocked the central mosque in Sapele, injuring night watchman Tanko Musu, though the police said there was no bomb and that an electrical fault was responsible for the blast. The bombed Islamic school is near the mosque.Imam said since the Boko Haram insurgence heightened in the North, the Muslim community in Sapele were coming under 'armed-robbery- like attacks. Criminals will come around with guns, beat people and steal cash and properties. The bomb attack on our mosque about three weeks ago was the first on our place of worship, then this one.'Analysts say it is too early to speak of retaliation following the attacks by Boko Haram, but worry about what such violence could mean.'Sapele just seems like the most unlikely place for a retaliatory attack to take place,' criminologist Innocent Chukwuma told the Associated Press news agency. 'But if it is, this would play right into Boko Haram, which has been looking to escalate the conflict to make the country ungovernable.'Speaking to Daily Trust, Sapele resident Emmanuel Okotie Eboh said throwing bombs on innocent school children was a dastardly act which should be condemned.Eboh, son of Nigeria's first Finance Minister, said whoever was responsible for the bombing in the quiet town of Sapele could not have been an indigene of the town.Sapele was calm yesterday, with people going about their normal businesses.
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