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Muslim Mobs, Seeking Vengeance, Attack Christians in Nigeria
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: May 13, 2004
Kano, Nigeria, May 12 - Muslim mobs brandishing machetes and clubs attacked Christians in the streets of Kano on Wednesday as security forces struggled to quell a two-day rampage to avenge a massacre of hundreds of Nigerian Muslims.
The police confirmed that at least 30 had been killed in strife engulfing Kano in northern Nigeria. Thousands of people, most of them belonging to the city's minority Christian population, cowered in army barracks and police stations as mobs attacked people outside. Witnesses said dozens more had been killed.
"I saw them put an old tire on his neck and set him ablaze," said Barry Owoyemi, 30, of a dead neighbor. Mr. Owoyemi, a Christian, was taken to safety by police officers who fired their guns in the air to scare away the attackers.
The police said they had been ordered to shoot rioters on sight.
The rampage exploded Tuesday after thousands of Muslims protested the killing of as many as 600 Muslims by a predominantly Christian ethnic group last week in Yelwa, a town in central Nigeria.
The latest rioting threatened to prolong the violence. On Wednesday, in what was apparently a response to Muslim attacks, a group of young Christians in Kano fired shotguns at groups of Muslim men accused of torching houses.
"The Kano situation is an unfortunate development and just a reverberation of what happened in Yelwa," said Remi Oyo, a spokeswoman for President Olusegun Obasanjo.
Mr. Obasanjo's election in 1999 started a brittle civilian government after 15 years of oppressive military rule and aggravated long-simmering ethnic, religious and communal tensions. Fighting in Nigeria, Africa's most-populous country, has since killed more than 10,000 people.
Mr. Obasanjo, a Christian and a former military junta leader, ordered security agencies on Wednesday to "put a permanent end" to the violence, Ms. Oyo said, without elaborating.
The police commissioner in Kano, Abdul Ganiyu Daudu, confirmed that 30 people had been killed. Rioters were burning buildings and blocking residents from escaping, he said.
Boniface Ibekwe, a leader of minority Christian Ibo-speakers in Kano, asked the police in the presence of journalists to "stop this killing today or give us six months to leave Kano peacefully."
On Wednesday evening, security forces fired shots and tear gas into the air to disperse crowds before a dusk-to-dawn curfew.
On Tuesday, Kano's most influential cleric started the Muslim protest at the town's main mosque, telling protesters that the Yelwa killings were part of a Western conspiracy against followers of Islam.
The attacks on Yelwa, on May 2 and 4 by ethnic Tarok Christians, left 500 to 600 people dead in the largely Muslim, Hausa-speaking town, said a Red Cross official who had traveled there. Nigerian officials, who routinely minimize violence to avoid inciting revenge attacks, put the death toll at half that.
In February, Muslim militants were blamed in the deaths of almost 50 people in Yelwa, including Christians taking refuge in a church.
Many of Nigeria's 126 million people, split almost evenly between Muslims and Christians, live together peacefully. But religious and ethnic enmities and competition between farmers and herders for fertile lands cause numerous deadly outbursts.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/13/international/africa/13nigeria.html
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: May 13, 2004
Kano, Nigeria, May 12 - Muslim mobs brandishing machetes and clubs attacked Christians in the streets of Kano on Wednesday as security forces struggled to quell a two-day rampage to avenge a massacre of hundreds of Nigerian Muslims.
The police confirmed that at least 30 had been killed in strife engulfing Kano in northern Nigeria. Thousands of people, most of them belonging to the city's minority Christian population, cowered in army barracks and police stations as mobs attacked people outside. Witnesses said dozens more had been killed.
"I saw them put an old tire on his neck and set him ablaze," said Barry Owoyemi, 30, of a dead neighbor. Mr. Owoyemi, a Christian, was taken to safety by police officers who fired their guns in the air to scare away the attackers.
The police said they had been ordered to shoot rioters on sight.
The rampage exploded Tuesday after thousands of Muslims protested the killing of as many as 600 Muslims by a predominantly Christian ethnic group last week in Yelwa, a town in central Nigeria.
The latest rioting threatened to prolong the violence. On Wednesday, in what was apparently a response to Muslim attacks, a group of young Christians in Kano fired shotguns at groups of Muslim men accused of torching houses.
"The Kano situation is an unfortunate development and just a reverberation of what happened in Yelwa," said Remi Oyo, a spokeswoman for President Olusegun Obasanjo.
Mr. Obasanjo's election in 1999 started a brittle civilian government after 15 years of oppressive military rule and aggravated long-simmering ethnic, religious and communal tensions. Fighting in Nigeria, Africa's most-populous country, has since killed more than 10,000 people.
Mr. Obasanjo, a Christian and a former military junta leader, ordered security agencies on Wednesday to "put a permanent end" to the violence, Ms. Oyo said, without elaborating.
The police commissioner in Kano, Abdul Ganiyu Daudu, confirmed that 30 people had been killed. Rioters were burning buildings and blocking residents from escaping, he said.
Boniface Ibekwe, a leader of minority Christian Ibo-speakers in Kano, asked the police in the presence of journalists to "stop this killing today or give us six months to leave Kano peacefully."
On Wednesday evening, security forces fired shots and tear gas into the air to disperse crowds before a dusk-to-dawn curfew.
On Tuesday, Kano's most influential cleric started the Muslim protest at the town's main mosque, telling protesters that the Yelwa killings were part of a Western conspiracy against followers of Islam.
The attacks on Yelwa, on May 2 and 4 by ethnic Tarok Christians, left 500 to 600 people dead in the largely Muslim, Hausa-speaking town, said a Red Cross official who had traveled there. Nigerian officials, who routinely minimize violence to avoid inciting revenge attacks, put the death toll at half that.
In February, Muslim militants were blamed in the deaths of almost 50 people in Yelwa, including Christians taking refuge in a church.
Many of Nigeria's 126 million people, split almost evenly between Muslims and Christians, live together peacefully. But religious and ethnic enmities and competition between farmers and herders for fertile lands cause numerous deadly outbursts.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/13/international/africa/13nigeria.html
