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news
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Clashes in
Nigerian city kill at least 4-Red Cross
Saturday,Feb 20, 2009 |
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By Tume Ahemba |
LAGOS, Feb 21 (Reuters) - At least four people were
killed and churches and mosques set ablaze in a
suburb of the Nigerian city of Bauchi on Saturday,
close to where clashes between religious gangs
killed hundreds of people last November.
Residents said the security forces moved swiftly to
quell the violence, which was contained in the
city's Dutsin-Tashin neighbourhood, and that it
appeared to have been brought under control. It was
not immediately clear what triggered the unrest.
"The security agencies have been directed to deal
decisively with the perpetrators of this mayhem,"
Bauchi state governor Isa Yuguda said in a statement
on local television and radio.
Adamu Abubakar, head of the Nigerian Red Cross in
Bauchi, said four people had been killed and 28
seriously wounded and hospitalised in the unrest.
"The military have been drafted in now and
everything is coming back to normal," Bauchi
resident Abdullahi Kwarbai said.
Clashes between Muslim and Christian gangs provoked
by a disputed election killed hundreds of people in
Jos, capital of neighbouring Plateau state, in
November, the worst unrest in Africa's most populous
nation for several years.
RED ALERT
A spokesman for the governor of Plateau state said
the security forces there were on red alert."We want
to forestall any eventuality here," Dan Manjang said
by telephone, but added that the situation was calm.
Nigeria is roughly equally split between Christians
and Muslims, although traditional animist beliefs
underpin many people's faith.More than 200 distinct
ethnic groups generally live peacefully side by side
in the West African country, although civil war left
one million people dead between 1967 and 1970 and
there have been bouts of religious unrest since
then.
Last year's violence in Jos, which lies at the
crossroads of the Muslim north and Christian south,
was triggered by a local election but was rooted in
decades-old rivalry between mostly Christian
indigenes and Hausa-speaking settlers from the
north.
The hostility had more to do with competition for
control of fertile farmlands and access to economic
opportunities, such as the right to own a market
stall or go to university, than with arguments about
religious belief. (For full Reuters Africa coverage
and to have your say on the top issues, visit:
africa.reuters.com/ ) (Additional reporting by Ardo
Hazzad in Katsina; Writing by Nick Tattersall)
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