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Dozens Killed in Clashes in Muslim-Majority Nigeria
TAFAWA
BALEWA, Nigeria, July 4 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Dozens of people
were killed and thousands forced to flee their homes due to ethnic and religious
clashes in the northern Nigerian town of Tafawa Balewa last month, witnesses
said Wednesday.
"There are many dozens who have been killed - at least 50 but probably many
more. It has been terrible," Hassan Balewa, a trader in Tafawa Balewa, told
the French news agency AFP.
More were killed in four villages in the Bogoro local government area, reliable
medical sources speaking on condition of anonymity said, pushing the estimated
death toll into the hundreds.
Two of the villages -- Gagare and Jigawa -- are mainly ethnic Hausa Muslim
villages and were attacked by Christian youths from the Sayawa ethnic community,
the sources said.
Fighting also took place in the other two villages -- Gittal and Gobbya -- which
are mainly Sayawa Christian, the sources said.
The exact death toll could not be confirmed and such reports were difficult to
verify independently.
The Bauchi State government is keen on playing down the level of the crisis in
the state, for fear of sparking retaliation elsewhere, and government spokesman
Mohammed Abdullahi said the death toll was not known.
"It is not possible now to give an accurate picture of the human and other
losses suffered in the violence," he told AFP.
The spark for the violence came during the second half of last month, following
an incident on June 19 in a bus park in Tafawa Balewa, which lies about 400
kilometers (240 miles) northeast of the capital, Abuja.
Muslims form the majority population in Tafawa Balewa, the hometown of a former
prime minister, and come mainly from the Hausa and Jarawa ethnic groups.
The minority Christians, who belong mainly to the Sayawa ethnic group, have
however, been angered by the introduction last month of the Islamic law code,
known as the Shari'ah, last month, which is favored by Muslims.
On June 19, a Muslim bus driver insisted that his male and female passengers,
some of whom were Christians, be segregated into different areas of the bus.
This sparked a riot by the Christians who said it meant Islamic law was being
imposed on them.
In the days that followed, dozens of mosques and homes were burned down and
several churches were attacked.
Hundreds of heavily armed police have been deployed from five neighboring states
and were manning checkpoints on the streets and at the town gates early
Wednesday.
The Nigerian Red Cross said on Monday that 22,000 people have fled their homes
in Tafawa Balewa and surrounding villages following the fighting, but declined
to provide a number for casualties.
"We have over 22,000 people, representing over 4,000 families
displaced," the acting secretary general of the Nigerian Red Cross, Abiodun
Orebiyi, told AFP on Monday.
Many people have been killed, he said, but declined to give a more precise
figure.
The Bauchi State government, which says Tafawa Balewa has a population of
between 15,000 and 20,000, says Shari'ah has not been imposed on non-Muslims,
but admits it has been applied in the town.
"The state government has not attempted to impose Sharia on non-Muslims. We
have stated many times that Shari'a' is only meant for Muslims and we stand by
that," Abdullahi said.
He said Shari'ah was not being applied at all in the Bogoro local government,
where Christians are a majority.
"As for Tafawa Balewa, it is a fact that Muslims are in the majority which
means that Shari'ah can be implemented there," he added.
In a separate incident, a Muslim journalist working for Agence France-Presse was
forced out of a town in northern Nigeria under police protection early Wednesday
after being menaced by a mob of Christian youths.
Aminu Abubakar, a freelance correspondent for AFP based in the northern city of
Kano, had gone to the town of Tafawa Balewa in Bauchi State on Tuesday to report
on the unrest.
As the correspondent interviewed people in the town early Wednesday, a crowd of
Christian youths gathered and became aggressive.
"Most of the Muslims have left Tafawa Balewa. The crowd said they had heard
an AFP journalist who is a Muslim was interviewing people and wanted to attack
me," Abubakar said.
"They threatened to kill me and I was only saved by the police," he
said, explaining that a police unit formed a protective ring around him.
Abubakar said he was forced to publicly rip up the notebook which he had been
using before the mob would allow him to leave, under police escort, for the
state capital, Bauchi.
The youths were members of an ethnic-religious organization known as the Zar
Youth, whose members are Christians from the Sayawa ethnic community.
The Sayawa have been angered by the introduction of the Islamic laws.
Divisional police officer Abdul Gimba said the situation in the town was
"still tense" early Wednesday.
"Tension is still high. These youths are hostile," he said.
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