It was a bloody Noel for refugees lining up for food in Pakistan and last-minute Christmas shoppers in Nigeria, where separate terrorist attacks killed scores of people.
At least 42 people were killed and another 100 injured when a female suicide bomber blew herself up in a crowd of people waiting for United Nations emergency food rations in north-west Pakistan.
The burqa-clad attacker lobbed grenades into the crowd of mostly women and children before detonating the explosives wrapped around her waist, officials said.
The victims were refugees from fighting in the Bajaur region who had gathered at a World Food Program site in the town of Khar.
Meanwhile in Africa, seven blasts ripped through the restive Nigerian city of Jos, killing at least 31 people in a region riven by conflict between Christians and Muslims.
Officials said 74 people were hurt, many of them seriously.
Gov. Jonah Jang called it a “black Christmas.”
“When we should be celebrating peace, here we are crying,” he said.
Many of the dead were last-minute Christmas shoppers, or commuters caught in the cars by traffic jams caused by the first explosions.
Nigerian government official Choji Gyang said there was no claim of responsibility but Islamic fundamentalists are suspected of carrying out the attacks.
“For long, they have been threatening to use violence against Christians and free the region from the shackles of Western imperialism,” Gyang told CNN.
The government had recently started receiving letters purporting to be from Muslim organizations threatening attacks against Christians, Gyang said.
“The security officials didn’t take the threat letters seriously. They were thought of as gimmicks, and at the end of the day, they became reality,” he said.
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