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Troops in Armored Vehicles on Patrol in Nigerian City
LAGOS, Sept 9 (News Agencies) - Lightly-numbered troops in armored vehicles patrolled the streets of the central Nigerian city of Jos Sunday in attempts to maintain order after a day-and-a-half of Christian-Muslim violence that left at least 50 dead, news agencies reported.
The fighting between the two religious communities - once again highlighting the fragile state of Africa's most populous country - erupted late on Friday after weeks of simmering tensions, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
Hospital and police authorities declined Sunday to give a firm death toll resulting from the violence in Jos and a nearby town; but local journalists said that at least 50 people had been killed.
With gangs of youths from the Christian majority hunting down minority Muslims, troops took to the streets Saturday to assist badly outnumbered police and restored order early Sunday, residents said.
"We have troops out in fighting vehicles. The situation has improved. Firing has died down," Lieutenant-Colonel Ayo Olaniyan, spokesman for the 3rd Armored Division, told AFP.
"A few last pockets of trouble remain in some suburbs" of the city, the capital of Plateau State, but even there the violence had been "reduced to scuffles", he said.
Earlier Saturday, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo said he had ordered troops into the city and confirmed that, "lives have been lost."
"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 said. "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.
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.
Acting State Governor Michael Botmang, who was to call a meeting of community leaders both in Jos and in surrounding towns, appealed "to the elders to keep the peace," Gomos said.
Religious leaders have been making appeals for peace on local state-run radio every 10 minutes, he added.
Meanwhile, bodies were still lying on the streets and shops remained closed with few people moving about, local journalists said.
Following the unrest, churches that would normally have been packed remained shuttered and boarded up.
"People are scared. They are moving about but only with escorts," Isaac Shobayo, a journalist with the
Nigerian Tribune, said via telephone.
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.
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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