Title: Scores die as
Nigerian religious violence spreads
Author:
Publication: Reuters
Date: February 28, 2000
LAGOS, Nigeria (Reuters)
-- Scores of people died in rioting Monday in southeast
Nigeria, in a backlash
to last week's northern religious blood-letting as violence in Africa's
most populous nation appeared to be spinning out of control.
Witnesses saw 50 corpses
in the main streets of the southeastern city of Aba on Monday, while more
deaths were reported from nearby Onitsha as ethnic Ibo Christians attacked
immigrant Hausa Muslims in revenge for last week's riots in their northern
homeland.
In northern Nigeria's
largest city of Kano, paramilitary police put on a show of force to try
to prevent reprisals and reassure Ibos and other southerners and Christians,
many of whom tried to flee or take sanctuary in military camps.
"It is getting to the
point where I am afraid there may be no going back," said Clement Nwankwo
of the Constitutional Rights Project, which fought against military rule
and monitored the elections which ended it last year.
The spreading chaos,
reminiscent of the run up to a 1967 civil war, has gravely threatened the
West African country of 108 million people and its less than 1-year-old
democracy under President Olusegun Obasanjo.
Violence flared in the
northern city of Kaduna last week at a march by Christians against calls
from Muslims for the introduction of Islamic sharia law along similar lines
to its adoption by other northern states with larger Muslims populations.
Hundreds of people were
killed before troops and police were able to bring order and stem atrocities
committed in the name of both faiths.
"I blame religious and
community leaders in this city and the state in general for failing in
your responsibilities to maintain peace and harmony among your followers
and subjects," Obasanjo said during a visit to devastated Kaduna on Monday.
Defusing the tension
is difficult for Obasanjo, a Christian southerner who is keen not to offend
northern Moslem sensibilities after being accused of marginalizing the
region which has dominated politics since independence from Britain in
1960.
Residents of Aba said
trouble began on Monday after the return from the north of bodies
of Ibo traders.
Gangs of youths took
to the streets armed with machetes and clubs, chanting war songs as they
killed and burned ethnic rivals.
"It was just a manhunt
in Aba and for hours the police appeared powerless to stop it. Outside
the city there were checkpoints where people were pulled out of vehicles
and killed on the spot," said one eyewitness.
In northern Kano, home
to a large Ibo community, heavily-armed paramilitary police drove through
the streets in a show of force.
But buses to the south
were packed full of southeasterners fearing reprisals in the city which
has often been a flashpoint of ethnic and religious violence.
The killing of thousands
of Ibos in northern Nigerian in the 1960s and the subsequent flight of
tens of thousands more triggered civil war in which 1 million died before
the southeast's bid to secede was defeated.
