Churches set ablaze and 5,000 displaced after violence in northern Nigeria
Pastor Dale Morgan
Churches set ablaze and 5,000 displaced after violence in northern Nigeria*
By AHMED SAKA
The Associated Press
Monday, January 18, 2010; 8:34 AM
JOS, Nigeria -- Angry Muslim youths set a church filled with worshippers
ablaze in northern Nigeria, starting a riot that killed at least 10
people and wounded 69 others in the latest religious violence in the
region, officials said Monday.
About 5,000 people lost their homes as rioters also burned mosques and
homes in Jos, a city that saw more than 300 residents killed during a
similar uprising in 2008, said local Red Cross official Auwal Muhammad
Madobi. He said he had no information about deaths and police officials
declined to offer a count of the dead.
An Associated Press reporter saw the bodies of 10 dead youths, marked
with bullet holes and machete wounds, at a local hospital on Monday. On
Sunday, witnesses told reporters they saw 10 bodies at a mosque in the
city. It was unclear if the bodies in the hospital were the same ones
seen in the mosque.
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The rioting began Sunday, when the youths attacked a church, said
Gregory Yenlong, a state government spokesman. Yenlong said he didn't
know why the young men set the blaze.
"That's what's being investigated," he said.
Police arrested 35 people who they suspect took part in the rioting,
Yenlong said. He said at least five of the men arrested were wearing
fake Nigerian military uniforms.
Traffic in the northern Nigerian city remained light on Monday, as the
few cars traveling met multiple roadblocks and close searches by police
and soldiers. Local police spokesman Mohammed Lerama said the site of
the rioting remained sealed off, but that calm had returned to Jos.
"There's an absolute peace," Lerama said.
Jos sits in the heart of northern Nigeria, home to the nation's Muslim
population. Religious violence, largely based on local disputes rather
than global conflicts, has struck Jos in the past. Rioting in September
2001 killed more than 1,000 people and Muslim-Christian battles killed
up to 700 people in 2004.
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Associated Press Writer Jon Gambrell contributed from Lagos, Nigeria.