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FEW hours after the Plateau State government gave a shoot-on-sight order and imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew on the crisis-ridden Yelwa-Shendam area, 25 persons were yesterday shot dead by security agents in the village.
The deceased were those sitting under the tree and analysing the bloody communal clashes in the area which had claimed over 100 people.
Before this latest incident yesterday, the Deputy Governor, Mr. Michael Botmang, had announced governments shoot-on-sight order to security agents to prevent further breakdown of law and order.
Botmang made the announcement in Yelwa village during an inspection of the extent of the damage to the area yesterday. He was accompanied by security agents.
This announcement came 24 hours after about 600 policemen were deployed by the Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Mr. Tafa Balogun to the troubled area.
The latest development came on the heels of charges by a Muslim leader that the mayhem was targeted at Muslims.
Earlier, the secretary to the state government (SSG), Mr. Joel Gobak, had warned of the dire consequences and even rumour mongering for those involved in the crisis.
As at the time of going to press, the Presidential Peace Committee which was still meeting yesterday endorsed the state government's decision to impose the dusk-on-dawn curfew and shoot-on-sight order.
A communique is expected from the meeting which had in attendance the Emirs of Zaria, Alhaji (Dr.) Shehu Idris and Wase, and other associations like the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) and Jamaatu Nasrul-Islam (JNI).
On Wednesday, Inspector-General of Police (IGP) Mr. Tafa Balogun deployed 600 anti-riot policemen to the area where over 100 persons have been reportedly killed during a fresh attack on Yelwa village.
Deployment of armed policemen followed an order by President Olusegun Obasanjo that peace, law and order be restored to the community with immediate effect.
The president expressed great pain and sadness over the fresh outbreak of violence and hostilities in the area.
Police had said that it was a reprisal attack following a similar action on Kawo village last week which left an unconfirmed number of persons dead.
President Obasanjo, according to his senior special assistant on media, Mrs. Oluremi Oyo, was greatly disturbed by the escalating communal clashes and had directed the IGP to take immediate action to end the ugly development.
Mrs. Oyo added that the President had also urged the people to sheathe their swords and choose the path of peace and dialogue for quick resolution of their differences.
Police authorities in a statement signed by Force Public Relations Officer Mr. Chris Olakpe, a deputy commissioner of police, said the Plateau State police commissioner Mr. Innocent Ilozuoke, had been directed to ensure total compliance with the presidential order.
Meanwhile, a spokesman for Muslims has called for a judicial enquiry into the clashes.
Justice Abdulkadir Orire told the BBC that some 200 Muslims were killed when they were attacked by Christian militiamen with machine guns.
Justice Orire also urged the Plateau State governor Chief Joshua Dariye to clarify reports that he told non-indigenous people to leave.
BBC Africa analyst Elizabeth Blunt says that "non-indigenes" means the Muslim community, even though it may be 100 years since their families settled in the area.
Plateau State police commissioner Mr. Ilozuoke told the BBC that the police had counted 67 dead but it was impossible to say exactly how many people had been killed because towns people had already started burying their dead.
Mutilated and charred corpses were still lying on the main street of the remote market town on Tuesday, reports a Reuters correspondent in the town.
Almost every house lining the main street of Yelwa was burned and some were still smouldering on Tuesday, the BBC reported.
Thousands of Muslims lined the roadside chanting religious slogans and vowing revenge on the attackers, the BBC report monitored in Lagos yesterday said.
"Allah will avenge us. The pagans have killed our people," said one man.
In Christian villages near Yelwa, hundreds of youths were sitting on the roadside, apparently awaiting further violence, Reuters says.
Mohammed Ahmed, a motorcycle taxi driver from Yelwa, told reporters he had escaped after the town was attacked by a militia unit from the rival Christian Tarok community, who allegedly arrived in two jeeps mounted with machine guns.
"It is Tarok men who attacked us," he reportedly told the BBC correspondent.
"If you hear the sound of their guns, you will think that the heavens want to fall. Many women and children were killed. I saw this," he said.
The militia had sealed off most routes out of the town, he said.
Justice Orire, secretary general of the Nigerian Muslim umbrella organisation Jama'atu Nasril Islam, asked where the Christian militia had got machine guns from, if they had not had outside backing.
He said Muslims from Yelwa reported that their cattle were being taken, or prevented from grazing, and they felt there was an attempt to get them to leave the area, even before this week's events.
In February, 48 Christians were killed by armed Muslim Fulanis in Yelwa after they had taken refuge in a church.
Muslim Fulani cattle herders and Christian Tarok farmers have been clashing in central Nigeria for more than two months now.
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