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Nigerian Army Restores Calm Following Violence
JOS, Nigeria, Sept 10 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Soldiers sent to halt killing in the Nigerian city of Jos conducted patrols and collected bodies on Monday as the confirmed death toll from three days of Christian-Muslim violence rose past 165.
Besides the dead, who lay in morgues, hospitals and scattered on the streets, more than 1,000 wounded people were receiving or waiting for treatment.
With the fighting apparently subsiding after a heavy troop deployment, and incidents taking place only in isolated pockets, the full scale of the violence unleashed on Friday started to emerge.
"Our records, as at this afternoon, show that 165 bodies have been deposited at various hospitals in Jos. We also brought 928 who are injured," Nigerian Red Cross official Phillip Macham told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Macham was speaking to AFP shortly before briefing the chief medical director of the main university teaching hospital in Jos.
"This figure includes those that were brought by the police and other organizations. We still have so many bodies on the streets. We are over-stretched," he added.
Earlier, Plateau State Information Commissioner Amos Azi told journalists, releasing an initial partial official toll, said 51 people had been killed and more than 500 wounded by midday Sunday, (AFP) reported.
"This is not a final figure. The total I have given you is ... on what we have received from various hospitals and clinics," he said, quoted by AFP.
A correspondent with the U.S. network National Public Radio in the city told AFP he had seen three truckloads of bodies delivered to the city morgue in a half-hour period Monday.
The unrest was sparked Friday by an argument outside a mosque, after which vigilante groups went on a rampage following a false rumor that a Christian church had been burnt down, BBC's online service reported.
Thousands of people continued to flee the city, lining the roads out of town, while others sought refuge in police barracks and the grounds of primary schools.
Azi warned rioters who continued to defy the army. No one should "test the will of this government", he said.
"We want to warn that henceforth any further act of violence will be met by a stiff and decisive response by the security agencies," he added.
Troops took to the streets to assist badly outnumbered police and restored order to the violence-hit city, residents said.
The sharp sound of gunfire ricocheted early Monday around the city after unrest continued overnight for the third straight night in a row.
Soldiers of the 3rd Armored Division were everywhere, grouped at checkpoints and on crossroads and carrying out mounted patrols from armored vehicles.
The few private vehicles moving on the streets were stopped and searched by the soldiers. Shops and stalls remained firmly closed.
Civilians out on the street raised their hands over their heads to show the gun-toting soldiers they were empty handed.
A group of foreign correspondents were taken on a tour of the city under army escort.
Acting Governor of Plateau State, Michael Botmang, held a security meeting early Monday to assess the situation with army and police commanders.
In a second broadcast to the state since the violence erupted, Botmang appealed for calm and warned soldiers had been given strict instructions to act "ruthlessly" with rioters.
"I appeal to all citizens to remain calm as government is taking every step to ensure that normalcy returns to the city," he said.
"All security agents have been directed to deal ruthlessly with any individual or group that exploit this situation to foment further trouble," he added.
Mosques, churches and houses were burned down as violence raged through the city of four million people, BBC's online service reported.
Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, who condemned the violence, ordered the military into the city at the weekend.
"True believers in God cannot start killing other human beings," Obasanjo said, quoted by BBC.
"As human beings we will always have friction when we live together, but it should not lead to violence or the urge to take life," he added. "Things like these are a disgrace to us as human beings."
"It is madness and cannot be the action of rational people. Lives have been lost and property destroyed," the president said.
A journalist in Jos, Shehu Sawlawa, told the BBC's Network Africa program that although the presence of the security forces had given some people the confidence to begin returning to their homes, others were boarding out of town on lorries and buses.
The secretary to the government in Plateau State - the state's top civil servant - Ezekiel Gomos, told AFP that the government was working with community leaders to try to restore peace.
"We have not yet reached normalcy, but we are working towards that... Jos is usually a peaceful place but this peace has been disturbed," he said.
Religious leaders from both sides, who have been making appeals for peace on local state-run radio every 10 minutes, are calling for talks, and a former Nigerian military ruler General Yakubu Gowon is negotiating a meeting between Muslim and Christian elders, BBC reported Monday.
Relations between the two communities were already tense after the appointment of a Muslim to head a state poverty-reduction program.
There was also an ethnic dimension to the conflict, as many of the fighters on the Christian side are members of the Berom tribe, a group native to Jos.
Fulanis and Hausas - two of Nigeria's largest ethnic groups - make up a large proportion of the Muslims, according to BBC.
Named for the beautiful mountain highlands on which it lies, Plateau State is situated northeast of the capital, Abuja, and is one of the few Christian-majority states in the mainly Muslim region of northern Nigeria.
Most of Jos is Christian and most of the violence appears to have been directed by Christians against members of the Muslim community in the town.
Relations between Muslims and Christians have been strained all across the north since the introduction of Islamic law in 12 of the 19 states in January of last year, a move strongly opposed by Christians.
Nigeria is split between more than 250 ethnic groups and the two major religions, and violence can start easily, AFP said.
On Sunday, a newspaper reported 21 dead in ethnic clashes in Taraba State, southeast of Plateau, between the Tiv and Jukun ethnic groups - three months after ethnic violence in Nassarawa State left more than 100 dead.
In February of last year, between 2,000 and 3,000 people were killed in Muslim-Christian riots in Kaduna over calls for the introduction of Islamic law.
In June and July of this year, hundreds of people were killed in fighting between Muslims and Christians in the northern state of Bauchi.
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