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Curfew in Nigeria as 11 die in riots
STUART REID
NIGERIA spent a night under curfew as authorities struggled to contain riots in which 11 people have been killed.
Young Muslims killed at least 11 Christians and set two churches ablaze in the northern city of Kano in a reprisal for the killing of hundreds of Muslims in central Nigeria last week.
President Olusegun Obasanjo called on Muslim leaders to show restraint to avoid further bloodshed.
The violence flared yesterday in at least two parts of Nigeria’s second largest city after a protest march by thousands of Muslims demanding a clamp down on Christian militia responsible for last week’s massacre in the remote farming town of Yelwa.
Witness Nath Ikyur said he saw rioters stopping vehicles and selecting non-Muslims to be killed.
"I saw at least ten dead bodies on the road," he said.
"I saw a group of five burned bodies at one point. Some of the others were cut with machetes," he added.
Kano, 250 miles north of the capital Abuja, is the centre of Islamic activism in Africa’s most populous nation and has been the scene of bloody religious riots in the past.
Thousands of Christians took refuge in a police academy building on the outskirts of town to escape rioters armed with cutlasses and clubs.
"They are burning houses and just killing Christians," said Gloria Butpan, a housewife who took refuge in the academy.
"There are a lot of casualties here.
"People have been cut all over their bodies and they are bleeding seriously," she said, adding that at least two churches had been burned.
Thousands of Muslims had earlier protested but dispersed after delivering a petition to the Kano state governor.
"The federal government should put a stop to the killing of Muslims in Plateau state or else the Muslims will have no option but to defend themselves," said Sheik Umar Kabo, a march leader.
More than 10,000 people have been killed in ethnic, religious and political violence in the country since the end of military rule in 1999.
This article:
http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=541062004
Nigeria:
http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=646
Websites:
Federal Government of Nigeria http://www.nigeria.gov.ng/
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