Sunday, November 30, 2008

Nigeria violence eases after hundreds killed

From the Financial Times- London. Christians and Muslim go at it again in Nigeria.

Nigerian security forces strengthened their presence in the central city of Jos on Sunday after clashes between Christian and Muslim mobs left hundreds of people dead.

The killings, triggered by a disputed local election, marked the first big outbreak of religious and ethnic violence since Umaru Yar’Adua, the president, took power in May last year.

The clashes have raised fears of reprisals among communities elsewhere in Nigeria’s “Middle Belt”, where hundreds of ethnic groups mingle in a fertile strip separating the Muslim north from the predominantly Christian south.

Some 400 people were killed after the violence started in Jos early on Friday, according to a mosque and hospital in the city. The Red Cross said 7,000 people had fled their homes.

The last time Nigeria witnessed clashes on a comparable scale was in May 2004, when more than 600 people, most Muslim Fulanis, were killed in the town of Yelwa, many by Christian militiamen. Hundreds more people, mainly Christians, were killed later the same month in the northern city of Kano.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3ed57030-befd-11dd-ae63-0000779fd18c.html

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