Nigerian Troops on Alert After 200 Killed in Clashes (Update1)
March 07, 2010, 4:45 PM EST(Adds acting president’s action in first paragraph.)
By Paul Okolo and Ardo Abdullahi Hazzad
March 7 (Bloomberg) -- Nigeria’s acting President Goodluck Jonathan placed security forces on “red alert” around the north central city of Jos after renewed sectarian violence in the city claimed about 200 lives.
The victims, most of them Christians, died in attacks early today in the village of Dogo na Hauwa, about 5 kilometers (3 miles) south of Jos, which has been at the center of deadly Christian-Muslim tension, according to Mark Lipdo, the spokesman for a Christian non-governmental organization.
“The security services are on top of the situation,” Ima Niboro, spokesman for Jonathan, said today in an e-mailed statement from Abuja, the country’s capital. Jonathan is consulting with security chiefs on the situation and has directed troops to deal with those responsible for the violence, the statement said.
More than 400 people died and 4,000 people were injured in three days of clashes between Christians and Muslims that occurred in Jos in mid January, according to Civil Rights Congress, a Nigerian human-rights group.
There are conflicting accounts of why that violence broke out in the city, which is about 200 kilometers northeast of the West African country’s capital, Abuja. Some reports blame a dispute over the rebuilding of a house destroyed in a clash more than a year ago, while the city’s police said it was the result of an attack by Muslims on Christians in a church, according to Human Rights Watch.
Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, with more than 140 million people, is divided between a predominantly Muslim north and a largely Christian south.
--Editor: John Simpson, Ben Livesey
To contact the reporter on this story: Paul Okolo in Abuja at pokolo@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Peter Hirschberg at phirschberg@bloomberg.net<Equity>
To contact the reporter on this story: Ardo Abdullahi Hazzad in Bauchi, Nigeria, via Johannesburg at pmrichardson@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Antony Sguazzin in Johannesburg at asguazzin@bloomberg.net.
