In brief: Ex-guerrilla takes presidential oath

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador – A onetime rural schoolteacher who became a rebel commander during El Salvador’s long civil war was sworn in as president Sunday, the first former guerrilla to lead the Central American nation.

Salvador Sanchez Ceren, 69, began his five-year term promising “honor, austerity, efficiency and transparency” at the inauguration ceremony attended by 13 heads of state or government.

Sanchez Ceren’s Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front battled U.S.-backed governments during a 12-year conflict in which some 76,000 people died. The Front became a political party after peace accords in 1992.

Bomb attack may have killed dozens

YOLA, Nigeria – Dozens of people were feared dead following an explosion on Sunday evening in northeastern Nigeria, with Boko Haram militants believed to be behind the attack, officials said.

The attack took place near a primary school where there are also a number of beer halls in the town of Mubi in Adamawa state, one of the three states under a year-old emergency rule imposed by President Goodluck Jonathan to fight Boko Haram, which seeks to impose Islamic rule in Nigeria.

Othman Abubakar, a spokesman for the Adamawa state police, confirmed the explosion but couldn’t say how many people had been killed or injured.

David Dauda, who witnessed the blast, said he saw at least 30 bodies following the explosion.

Three Catholic missionaries freed

ROME – Two Italian priests and a Canadian nun have been freed two months after they were abducted in northern Cameroon by armed groups, the Vatican and the Italy’s Foreign Ministry said Sunday.

Gianantonio Allegri, Giampaolo Marta and Gilberte Bussier were kidnapped April 5. The Italian Foreign Ministry thanked Canadian and Cameroon authorities, but didn’t say where or when the abduction ended.