|
Troops Enter as 50 Die in Nigerian Christian-Muslim Clashes
LAGOS, Sept 8 (News Agencies) - Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo on Saturday deployed troops in the central city of Jos to halt Christian-Muslim clashes that left at least 50 dead, and homes and buildings burning.
The clashes, which erupted Friday after Muslim prayers, continued late Saturday in pockets of Jos, as an overnight curfew was re-imposed, army spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Ayo Olaniyan told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
"There are pockets of fighting going on. The situation is considerably improved but there is still fighting going on," Olaniyan, spokesman for the 3rd Armored Division, said by telephone from Jos.
Obasanjo, speaking earlier on state-run radio, 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.
Isa Abdulsalami, a local journalist for the Nigerian newspaper The Guardian, told AFP by telephone from Jos that he had himself seen seven bodies scattered around the city.
"I have seen seven bodies myself. From reports from elsewhere around the city, it is at least 50 dead. The seven I saw had all been roasted," said the journalist.
One woman, working in the office of the governor, told AFP that the brother of a colleague had been shot dead early Saturday. Another person said he had seen three dead bodies on the street outside his home.
There was no official confirmation of the toll and a spokesman for Michael Botmang, the acting governor of Plateau State, said on Saturday that he believed the situation was coming under control.
Tension has been simmering for weeks between the indigenous majority Christian ethnic Berom people and the minority Muslim ethnic Hausa community who are viewed as settlers.
The reason was the appointment by the federal government of a minority Hausa as state coordinator of a government-run Poverty Eradication Program, seen as a lucrative appointment, infuriating the majority Berom people.
The spark was an incident involving a local Christian woman outside a mosque on Friday. The woman was allegedly attacked and Christian mobs seeking revenge set upon Muslims, witnesses said.
Around 1,000 people fled Saturday to the police station in the city.
The deployment of troops from the 3rd Armored Division, based in Jos, at around 10:00 am (0900 GMT), appeared to have restored a certain order to the city center.
Vehicles kept off the streets and shops remained closed for a second straight day. Around 100 vehicles had been burned, witnesses said.
At least five churches and one mosque had been burned.
The deployment of troops was the first in Nigeria since troops were sent onto the streets in Lagos after riots in October 2000.
Plateau State, named for the beautiful mountain highlands on which it lies, is situated northeast of the capital, Abuja, known as a normally quiet place, a largely Christian state in mainly Muslim northern Nigeria.
Since January 2000, a dozen northern states have introduced full or partial Islamic law, over the objections of Christians in the region, and the population of Jos has swelled with Christians leaving those states.
In February 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 July this year, hundreds of people were killed in fighting between Muslims and Christians in the northern state of Bauchi.
Reliable medical sources, working for an international medical agency, took part in the burial of 461 people in Bauchi and told AFP they believed up to 1,000 people could have been killed.
|
