It’s been a day of death and tears in Kano, the commercial capital of the North, with two suicide bomb incidents fouling the Eid-el-Fitri mood.

In one of the incidents, many were feared dead in a bomb explosion after a Sunday mass service at St Charles Catholic Church in the No Man’s Land area of the state capital.

The police however confirmed only five people killed and eight others injured in the blast.

Police spokesman Frank Mba said that the bomb was “probably an IED (improvised explosive device) thrown from across the street” at the Saint Charles Catholic Church in Kano’s Sabon Gari district, which has suffered previous attacks by the Islamist group Boko Haram

In a related incident, a female suicide bomber died after detonating an explosive device that injured two policemen at Kofar Nasarawa near the Northwest University, Kano.

“The incident happened when the policemen stopped the woman who was heading to the university,” according to one report of the incident.

“She blew herself up when the policemen attempted to stop her, while the officers sustained injuries,” the report added.

•File photo shows a Catholic Church bombed in northern Nigeria.