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1 December 2008

Nigerian city tense after riots

Posted by copjobsnow under: Uncategorized .

Sporadic gunfire has been heard in the central Nigerian city of Jos, where hundreds are feared dead following two days of religious and ethnic clashes.

An eyewitness told the BBC that 10 more killings had taken place but a Red Cross spokesman said the situation was much calmer as troops kept order.

Muslims have begun burying their dead while the Christian community is still counting its casualties.

The violence was sparked by accusations that an election had been rigged.

Nigerian police and soldiers were patrolling the streets on Sunday with orders to shoot on sight any troublemakers.

Jos has seen repeated download fantasy bouts of inter-communal violence, with more than 1,000 killed during riots in 2001.

At the Vatican, Roman Catholic Church leader Pope Benedict included Nigerian victims in his prayers on Sunday and urged the world to express “horror and disapproval” at the senseless violence.

Machete attacks

“The situation this morning is gradually returning to normal,” army spokesman Brig Emeka Onwamaegbu told AFP news agency on Sunday.

“There’s not been any cases this morning of any destruction or violence.”

Violence flared up on Friday after the mostly adventure movies Christian-backed governing party, the People’s Democratic Party, was declared to have won the state elections in Plateau state, of which Jos is the capital city.

The result was contested by the opposition All Nigeria People’s Party, which is perceived in the state as a predominantly Muslim party.

Groups of men from both the Muslim Hausa community and the other, mainly Christian ethnic groups took to the streets armed with machetes during the riots.

Houses, mosques and churches were burned and the Muslim dead were brought into the central mosque from the streets where they were killed.

The local imam said the number of dead was in the hundreds.

It is still not clear how many died among the other ethnic groups involved in the fighting whose dead were taken to the city’s morgues.

While ethnic and religious violence has claimed thousands of lives in Nigeria in recent years, the real trigger for the violence is usually competition for resources, the BBC’s Alex Last reports from Lagos.

And in Nigeria political office is perhaps the most powerful resource of all as it gives the holder access to some of country’s huge oil revenues, our correspondent adds.

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