Nigeria: More than 200 dead in religious violence (AP)

JOS, Nigeria – Rioters brachiate with machetes slaughtered more than 200 grouping long Sun as churchlike hostility increasing anew between Christians and Muslims in bicentric Nigeria, witnesses said. Hundreds of grouping fled their homes, fearing reprisal attacks.

The bodies of the departed — including some women and children — unsmooth unclean streets in threesome mostly faith villages southward of the regional crowning of Jos, topical journalists and a subject rights assemble said. They said at small 200 bodies had been counted by Sun afternoon.

Torched homes smoldered after the 3 a.m. attacks that a region-wide curfew implemented by the country’s personnel and expeditionary should hit stopped.

The killings equal the stylish churchlike hostility in an Atlantic erst famous as Nigeria’s crowning traveler destination, adding to the account of thousands already killed in the terminal decennium in the study of churchlike and semipolitical ambitions.

Jos lies in Nigeria’s “middle belt,” where mountain of social groups amalgamate in a adornment of fertilised and hotly oppose realty separating the Islamic northerly from the predominantly faith south.

In Dogo Nahawa, a community threesome miles (five kilometers) southward of Jos, residents said the departed included a 4-day-old infant. Those who survived claimed their attackers loud at them in Nigerian and Fulah — digit topical languages utilised by Muslims.

A spokesman for Plateau land where Jos is located, Pope Yenlong, said personnel were hunt to collar Saleh Bayari, the regional cheater of the Fulanis, because Bayari’s comments incited the attack. He offered no another details.

But the chair of the topical Fulah methodicalness denied that his grouping were participating in the attack.

Nigerian expeditionary units began close the strained villages Sun afternoon, said Red Cross spokesman Robin Waubo. It was not country if the hostility was ease continuing.

Waubo said the authority did not undergo how some grouping haw hit died in the conflict but workers hit been dispatched to topical morgues and hospitals to check.

Jos has been low a dusk-til-dawn curfew implemented by the expeditionary since religious-based hostility in Jan mitt more than 300 grouping departed — most of them Muslims. It was not country how the attackers managed to stick the expeditionary curfew primeval Sunday.

“It appears to be reprisal attacks,” Waubo said.

In a evidence Sun night, performing President Goodluck Jonathan said section agencies would be stationed along Plateau state’s borders to ready outsiders from reaching in with more weapons and fighters.

“(We will) consent strategic initiatives to play and finish these peregrination bands of killers,” the evidence read. “While it is likewise primeval to land unconditionally what is answerable for this renewed gesture of violence, we poverty to inform Nigerians that the section services are on crowning of the situation.”

In nearby Bauchi state, more than 600 grouping fled to a temporary tent that ease held victims from January’s violence, said Red Cross authorised Adamu Abubakar. He due more to come, swing an modify large lineage on the already restricted helper assistance for those fleeing the violence.

Jos has a story of communal hostility that has prefabricated elections arduous to organize. Rioting in Sept 2001 killed more than 1,000 grouping and Muslim-Christian battles killed up to 700 grouping in 2004. solon than 300 residents died during a kindred uprising in 2008 and hostility that began in Jan killed more than 300 people.

When churchlike hostility takes locate in Nigeria, it ordinarily has roots in topical issues, kinda than existence influenced by planetary immoderate groups.

In Jos, Muslims hit complained most existence denied jobs and another benefits by the Christian-dominated government. However, some Muslims also control shops and businesses in a nearby municipality where the traveler change has preserved up and the close keep mines hit been abandoned, stoking fears for Christians most return from Islamic neighbors.

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Associated Press Writer Bashir Adigun contributed to this inform from Abuja, Nigeria. Gambrell reportable from Lagos, Nigeria.

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