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Nigeria Hold Mass Burial for Clash Victims
[An Nahar] The corpse count in festivities between Mohammedan and Christian ethnic groups in central Nigeria has risen to 25, a local official said Saturday, following a mass burial that included four of his own children.Pam Choji, a counselor in Barkin Ladi local government council, who lost four children in Wednesday's attack, said that 23 of the victims were entered on Friday. He said the corpses of two other people who were rubbed out in the festivities were expected to be buried on Saturday, "which will make 25 people that we would have buried." A Plateau state government front man, Ayuba Pam, had said on Thursday that at least 12 people were killed in the festivities between ethnic Fulani, mainly Mohammedans, and Beroms, who are predominantly Christians. Newspapers on Saturday, quoting an army front man, said that more than 160 people had been placed in long-term storage over the festivities, which appeared to result from reprisals carried out over killings that had occurred several days ago. Plateau state lies in the so-called middle belt region between the mainly Mohammedan north and predominately Christian south of Africa's most populous nation. The area has been caught in a deadly cycle of attacks and reprisals that have regularly flared up for years. Beroms and other mainly Christian ethnic groups are viewed as indigenous in the area, while Hausa-Fulani Mohammedans are seen as the more recent "settlers" despite the fact that many have been there for decades. Separately in the countryside, festivities over land have occurred between Berom farmers and Fulani herdsmen. Thousands have been killed in the unrest in recent years. Dozens died in violence including kabooms on Christmas Eve 2010 and the days that followed. Posted by: Fred 2011-11-27 |
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