A troubling development in Nigeria
Nigeria Forces Are Implicated in the Killings of Muslims"Government security forces were implicated in the deaths of at least 90 of the hundreds of people killed in religious violence in the central Nigerian city of Jos last month, Human Rights Watch said Saturday.
"At least 400 people died when fighting broke out between Muslim and Christian gangs in the city on Nov. 28 and 29 after a dispute about local elections. Each side accused the other of rigging the vote.
"Muslims and Christians mingle uneasily in the so-called middle belt region of Nigeria, and tension frequently flares along religious, ethnic and political fault lines.
"Initial accounts of the killing in Jos indicated that the gangs had set upon each other’s neighborhoods, burning churches, homes, businesses and mosques.
"But based on testimony from witnesses interviewed in the aftermath of the violence, Human Rights Watch researchers documented seven shootings in which the police had killed at least 46 men and boys, almost all of them Muslim.
"In addition, military troops killed 47 people, also nearly all Muslims, according to the rights group’s investigation...
"The regional governor had issued a shoot-to-kill order in the city to quell the violence, which had erupted with sudden ferocity...
"Nigeria is Africa’s most populous nation, and its 140 million people are divided almost evenly between Islam and Christianity. Tensions between the religious groups have exploded periodically, often as proxy for deeper divisions over land, power and politics."
See also:
Labels: civil society, cleavages, Nigeria
posted by Ken Wedding @ 8:44 AM
1 Comments:
from Daily Trust (Abuja)
In Jos Riot Police Killed 90 Youths in Summary Executions - Report
"Men of the Nigeria Police Force and the Nigerian Army carried out more than 90 summary executions in suppressing the rioting that rocked Jos in November, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said yesterday.
"It listed a dozen separate incidents in which mainly Muslim men and youths were gunned down by men in uniform after the governor of Plateau State, Jonah David Jang, gave security agents a shoot-on-sight order...
"A number of fake soldiers were also arrested during the crisis, which resulted in the death of over 500 people and the destruction of billions of naira worth of property, including churches and mosques..."
Post a Comment
<< Home