At least 20 people have been killed and 52 more are injured in a “terrorist attack” on a church in the Syrian capital on Sunday, according to the country’s health ministry.

State media says a suicide bomber in Syria has detonated himself inside a church filled with people, killing at least nine.

In May, an armed raid on a Damascus nightclub and the killing of a woman at another venue led some bars to close. Christian residents of Damascus told Reuters that Muslim sheikhs had come to their neighbourhoods in the last six months to urge them to convert to Islam and to stop consuming alcohol.