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Death
Tolls Mounts In Army Rampage in Central Nigeria
MAKURDI, Nigeria, Oct 25 (News Agencies) - A Nigerian state governor said Thursday that at least 130 people in a central town have been killed by rampaging soldiers.
Ten more bodies were recovered in nearby Makurdi, the capital of Nigeria's Benue State, where students launched violent protests Wednesday over killings by the army, which intervened in order to quell ethnic strife.
It could not be immediately confirmed whether the ten killed were students who had participated in the protests in Makurdi, where soldiers were deployed to enforce a curfew.
Abubakar Audu, an official of the Red Cross, told Agence France- Presse (AFP) on Thursday that the 10 bodies were in fact a result of Wednesday's violence.
The state university and schools were shut and an AFP correspondent said the troubled region, where Tivs and Jukuns have been engaged in conflict, was quiet on Thursday.
Meanwhile, hundreds of people were fleeing as the violence continued Wednesday in the town of Zaki Biam, where soldiers were still on a rampage.
In the town of Gbeji, soldiers killed 130 people on Monday and Tuesday, Governor George Akume told journalists. He said more people had been killed in Anyiin, Iorja and Vaase, in the border area between the Benue and Taraba states.
Akume said President Olusegun Obasanjo had ordered the soldiers to stop the killings.
The military attacks came after 19 soldiers on a peacekeeping mission were abducted on October 11, killed and mutilated by ethnic militiamen. Obasanjo has vowed to punish those responsible.
The army action is the second massive reprisal attack by the military since the return to civilian rule in Nigeria in 1999.
Two years ago, more than 300 people were killed in Odi, a town in southern Bayelsa State, following the murder of about a dozen policemen.
The recent bloodshed highlights once again the volatility in Nigeria, where waves of religious and ethnic unrest which have claimed thousands of lives.
With an estimated population of more than 121.8 million, the crowded country is one of the most diverse on Earth - with more than 250 ethnic groups, and numerous regional and religious splits.
In the last two years, a dozen northern states have introduced versions of the Shari'ah, or Islamic law. This move was opposed by the federal government and much of Nigeria's Christian population.
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