A car bomb attack in a Christian enclave of Kano, the largest city in majority-Muslim northern Nigeria, has heightened religious and ethnic tensions throughout the country, World Watch Monitor reports. At least 25 people have died and at least 60 others were injured following the March 18 suicide bomb attack in a bus station in the Christian district of Sabon Gari, primarily used by passengers heading for Nigeria's mostly Christian south. Five buses were destroyed, one reported to be full of people. No group has yet claimed responsibility, but the manner of attack is similar to previous ones by the Islamist Boko Haram group. Its scale prompted Christian, Muslim and political leaders to urge the federal government to take urgent measures to avert a major crisis. The Christian Association of Nigeria and its main Muslim counterpart, Jama'atu Nasril Islam (Society for the Victory of Islam), both noted the Kano suicide attack was capable of threatening the unity of Nigeria if such attacks continue. CAN president Ayo Oritsejafor condemned "the barbaric and sustained bomb and gun attacks on innocent Nigerians" and called on the federal government to support the Christian association's call for the branding of Boko Haram as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, or FTO.
