| Submit your comments on this article |
| Africa: Subsaharan |
| Security Forces Deploy Across Nigeria |
| 2004-05-14 |
| Security forces deployed in cities across Nigeria on Thursday to prevent the latest outbreak of sectarian violence from spreading through Africa's most-populous nation. Two days of Muslim reprisal attacks on Christians in the northern city of Kano have killed some three dozen people, that Red Cross officials said Thursday. Extra police were on patrol in the southern city of Lagos and authorities beefed-up security forces in many heavily Islamic northern cities, including Kaduna where local governor Ahmed Makarfi ordered police to shoot "any troublemakers" on sight. President Olusegun Obasanjo on Thursday visited the central town of Yelwa, where members of a largely Christian ethnic group massacred hundreds of members of a rival Muslim tribe last week in retaliation for earlier slayings. Authorities said Obasanjo later traveled to Bauchi state in central Nigeria, visiting a relief camp holding 27,000 people who fled the region of Yelwa. A Red Cross official earlier said between 500 and 600 died in the town. Authorities vowed violence wouldn't follow Obasanjo to Bauchi. "We don't expect things to overboil here," Bauchi spokesman Mohammed Abdullahi told The Associated Press. "Anti-riot police are everywhere and the authorities have appealed to people not to resort to violence." Estimates varied widely Thursday of how many died in two days of violence in Kano, where some Muslims burned cars and buildings and attacked their Christian neighbors after a thousands-strong march to denounce the Yelwa killings. Aminu Inua, chairman of the Red Cross chapter in Kano said 36 people had been confirmed dead — higher than the 30 reported by Kano officials Wednesday — and he said the tally could grow. |
| Posted by:Fred |