Nigerian soldiers open fire on youths; 2 killed

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 17:16:00 -0500

JOS, Nigeria – Soldiers opened fire on a crowd after curfew and killed two people, witnesses said Wednesday, just days after more than 200 people including dozens of children were slaughtered in several mostly Christian villages nearby.

Hundreds of people swarmed the streets of Jos on Wednesday morning, where one truck's windshield was a spider web of bullet holes with the word "rejoice" scrawled on it.

Residents had tried to stop the truck late Tuesday from entering the town after curfew late Tuesday, fearing it was carrying fighters or weapons. People have accused police and military of failing to provide enough security to the villages that were attacked Sunday morning.

The military later arrived, asked the youth to leave, and then opened fire on them and the truck. Two were killed and five others were wounded, said Angela Ogobri, a nurse from a local hospital.

An Army colonel prevented AP reporters from seeing the dead. The truck was later found to be carrying only cattle and baskets.

At least 200 people, most of them Christians, were slaughtered on Sunday in several villages near Jos, according to residents, aid groups and journalists. The violence came less than two months after sectarian killings in this region left more than 300 dead, most of them Muslims.

Nigeria is almost evenly split between Muslims in the north and the predominantly Christian south. The recent bloodshed has been happening in central Nigeria, in Nigeria's "middle belt," where dozens of ethnic groups vie for control of fertile lands.

The weekend killings add to the tally of thousands who already have perished in Africa's most populous country in the last decade due to religious and political frictions. Rioting in September 2001 killed more than 1,000 people. Muslim-Christian battles killed up to 700 people in 2004. More than 300 residents died during a similar uprising in 2008.

Nigeria charges 49 over Jos killings

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 13:45:00 -0500

Nigerian police say 49 people are to be charged with murder after communal violence left scores of villagers dead.

Most of those facing charges are Muslims from the Fulani group, police spokesman Mohammed Lerama told the BBC.

The number of those arrested since the killings near the city of Jos has risen to 200, he said.

Police say 109 people - thought to be mostly Christians - died in Sunday's bloodshed. Earlier reports put the toll at more than 500.

The violence followed sectarian killings near Jos in January that left more than 300 dead, most of them believed to be Muslims.

Plateau State, in central Nigeria, sits between the mainly Christian south and the predominantly Muslim north.

Although the violence takes place largely between Muslims and Christians, analysts say the underlying causes are economic and political.

International pressure

Officials say police and troops are patrolling the area to prevent further trouble.

Chief of police for Plateau State Ikechukwu Aduba said on Wednesday he had asked for extra help.

"Our urgent patrol efforts after the incident... have yielded good results," he said.

"We have requested reinforcements, and have been reassured... that reinforcement is on its way."

However, international pressure is growing on the Nigerian government to take further action.

On Wednesday Pope Benedict XVI denounced the bloodshed as "atrocious".

He urged civil and religious leaders "to work towards security and peaceful co-existence".

The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions called on the Nigerian government to "move swiftly" to prevent further attacks.

Earlier, the governor of Plateau State, Jonah Jang, said security lapses had worsened the carnage in the three villages targeted.

He said he had warned the army about reports of suspicious people with weapons hours before they attacked, but they failed to take action.

"Three hours or so later, I was woken by a call that they [armed gangs] have started burning the village and people were being hacked to death," Mr Jang said.

"I tried to locate the commanders. I couldn't get any of them on the telephone."

Mercenaries

Acting President Goodluck Jonathan has sacked the country's national security adviser, Sarki Mukhtar, in an apparent response to the killings.

But the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, said the villages should have been properly protected after the January killings.

The head of the northern area of Nigeria's Christian Association has said he believed mercenaries were involved.

Saidu Dogo told the BBC that fighters from neighbouring Chad and Niger took part in the violence.

State information commissioner Gregory Yenlong said on Monday that more than 500 people were killed. That figure was also given by religious leaders and rights activists.

But state police commissioner Ikechukwu Aduba says 109 people are known to have died.

Spanish hostage in Africa freed

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 08:23:00 -0500

A Spanish women kidnapped in West Africa last year has been freed, the Spanish government says.

There are unconfirmed reports that an Italian woman held by the same group has also been released.

Spaniard Alicia Gamez, and Italian Philomene Kaboure, both 39, were seized last year and held by a militant group, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.

They were seized separately in Mauritania, and then held in neighbouring Mali.

Two other male Spaniards and another Italian - Ms Kaboure's husband - are still being held.

The two hostages were released in Burkina Faso, according to diplomatic sources cited by Spanish, French and Italian media.

The Spanish government later confirmed Ms Gamez' release, but there has been no confirmation about Ms Kaboure.

Ransom demands

The three Spanish aid workers were snatched from a convoy by armed men on a road between the Mauritanian cities of Nouakchott and Nouadhibou on 29 November.

Ms Kaboure and her husband, Sergio Cicala, 65, were seized the following month.

They were all taken to northern Mali.

A Frenchman seized in Mali in November and held by the same group was released last month after its demand that Mali release four prisoners was met.

The Mauritanian government reacted with outrage, saying giving in to the demands would encourage further kidnapping.

Spanish media reported recently that al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb had demanded a ransom to release the hostages, and El Mundo newspaper alleged that the Spanish government was in the process of paying.

Gunshots heard in violence-wracked Nigerian town

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 17:54:00 -0500

JOS, Nigeria – Automatic weapons fire punctuated by screams erupted after dark Tuesday in a Nigerian city located near villages where massacres just two days ago left more than 200 people dead.

Nerves remained on edge, despite a long-standing dusk-til-dawn curfew in Jos, the capital of Plateau state. When sustained gunfire rang out for about three minutes, apparently from several automatic rifles, people ran screaming through the streets.

More than 100 people, mostly women and children, sought shelter in a hotel where journalists and military commanders were staying. They wailed in terror as they heard gunshots coming one by one from outside. A ranking police officer in Jos said the shooting happened after people gathered in the street because of a suspicious truck in their neighborhood.

The officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to discuss the shooting with reporters, said soldiers opened fire to scare away the group.

However, human rights group say extrajudicial killings remain common in Nigeria — especially in situations of civil unrest.

Evarisitus Fuanbal, a former soldier who now works at Jos' City Lodge Hotel, said the military officers staying at the hotel left Tuesday evening after receiving word of people assembling nearby.

Earlier Tuesday, the U.S. government and human rights activists called for Nigeria to investigate and prosecute those responsible for Sunday's killings.

Acting President Goodluck Jonathan had promised that the fighting would stop after more than 300 people, mostly Muslims, were slain in January. Some described Sunday's massacres, which targeted Christians, as revenge for what happened in January. Others said the bloodshed has ethnic roots, with Fulani cattlemen wanting to take over nearby land.

Human Rights Watch urged Jonathan to provide protection for villages surrounding Jos, a central Nigerian city that has become the epicenter of violence in the region.

Jonathan fired his national security adviser Monday following the weekend violence.

"After the January killings, the villages should have been properly protected," U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said. "Clearly, previous efforts to tackle the underlying causes have been inadequate, and in the meantime the wounds have festered and grown deeper."

Those who survived attacks Sunday in three mostly Christian villages said security forces never provided them any guards.

Human Rights Watch researcher Corinne Dufka said authorities must protect the communities, bring the perpetrators to justice and address the root causes of violence.

The U.S. Embassy in Abuja, Nigeria's capital, called on Nigeria's federal government to seek justice "under the rule of law and in a transparent manner," the embassy said.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called the violence "tragic."

Plateau state Gov. Jonah Jang told reporters Tuesday he received a tip that villagers saw suspicious people with weapons several hours before the massacres. Jang, who leads the Christian-controlled state government, said the army ignored him when he called to warn them.

"I reported to the commander of the army and he told me that he was going to move some troops there," Jang said. "Three hours or so later, I was woken by call that they have started burning the village and people were been hacked to death and I tried to locate the commanders. I couldn't get any of them on the telephone."

As night fell Tuesday, police and soldiers began massing on two neighborhoods in Jos — one near the city's police college and the other along the road to the city's airport, witnesses said. Both are mixed neighborhoods of Christians and Muslims.

Jonathan said security forces would lock down the borders of Plateau state to stop weapons and potential fighters from infiltrating the region. But people could pass through checkpoints without being searched. Some posts were unmanned, while police and soldiers at others merely watched cars pass by without stopping them.

The killings Sunday add to the tally of thousands who have already perished in Africa's most populous country in the last decade due to religious and political frictions. Rioting in September 2001 killed more than 1,000 people. Muslim-Christian battles killed up to 700 people in 2004. And more than 300 residents died during a similar uprising in 2008.

Nigeria is almost evenly split between Muslims in the north and the predominantly Christian south. The recent bloodshed has been happening in central Nigeria, in Nigeria's "middle belt," where dozens of ethnic groups vie for control of fertile lands.

Nigerian army 'ignored warning of massacres'

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 14:06:00 -0500

A Christian organisation in Nigeria has accused the army of ignoring warnings of attacks in the build-up to the weekend massacre near the city of Jos.

Hundreds died during attacks on three villages in an area which straddles the country's mainly Christian south and Muslim north.

The massacre is seen as revenge for a previous bout of killings in January.

The army has not yet responded to the accusations but troops are patrolling the area to prevent further clashes.

Some villagers have been fleeing the area.

Military curfew

The head of the northern area of Nigeria's Christian Association said he believed mercenaries were involved.

Saidu Dogo told the BBC that fighters from neighbouring Chad and Niger took part in the violence.

"For quite some time we have alerted the government to training grounds in some part of the northern state where people are being trained to cause problems in the country... Nobody did anything about it," he said.

"Many people come into Nigeria under the pretext of [being] pastoralists, they are mercenaries. They follow pastoralist routes to gain entrance, carry out their activities and then leave," he said.

Earlier, the Plateau State Christian Elders Consultative Forum complained that it had taken the army two hours to react after receiving a distress call, the AFP news agency reported.

By that time, "the attackers had finished their job and left", they said.

The authorities believe the attack on the three villages near the Plateau state capital, Jos, was an act of revenge carried out by members of the mainly Muslim Fulani community.

The US and human rights campaign groups have urged the government to arrest and try those responsible.

"The Nigerian government should ensure that the perpetrators of acts of violence are brought to justice under the rule of law, and that human rights are respected as order is restored," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said.

'Festering wounds'

But Mr Dogo urged the international community to become more actively involved as, he said, the government was unable to protect its own people.

"We feel that the world just has to do something. If the Nigerian government cannot do something then the world has to do something to stop this killing."

He also blamed local politicians for stirring up the violence.

Acting President Goodluck Jonathan has sacked the country's national security adviser, Sarki Mukhtar, in an apparent response to the killings.

But the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, said the villages should have been properly protected after the January killings.

"Clearly, previous efforts to tackle the underlying causes have been inadequate, and in the meantime the wounds have festered and grown deeper," she said, according to the Associated Press.

Nigerian troops are patrolling the villages which were targeted on Sunday in a bid to prevent further violence and police say they have arrested more than 90 people suspected of inciting violence.

But residents of nearby communities say they are already getting ready to leave, fearing a fresh wave of violence.

"We are fleeing our village because we are afraid we might be the next target of attack by these Fulani," Patricia Silas, 30, told AFP.

"They have been making phone calls warning they are going to attack. We take these threats seriously. We don't want to be caught off-guard."

Many of the dead in the villages of Zot and Dogo-Nahawa, largely inhabited by Christian members of the Berom community, are reported to be women and children.

Clashes have broken out periodically since 2001, with competition for resources and political power seen as being at the heart of the conflicts between the rival communities.

Troops on patrol after Nigeria ethnic massacre

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 08:07:00 -0500

JOS, Nigeria – Nigerian troops were on Tuesday patrolling tense villages near the troubled city of Jos after the massacre of more than 500 Christians as survivors fled the threat of further violence.

Women and children were hacked to death or burned alive in their homes in the latest massacre. Survivors have accused the authorities of intervening too late.

Thousands have been killed in recent years in strife in and around Jos, which is on the dividing line between the largely Muslim north and Christian dominated south.

Witnesses blamed the latest massacre on the mainly Muslim Fulani ethnic group. According to media reports, Muslim villagers were warned by text message to leave two days before attack.

Security forces said they had detained 95 suspects in the violence, and acting president Goodluck Jonathan has sacked his chief security advisor but fears abound of either more attacks by the Fulani or of Christian reprisals.

With a six-month-old baby strapped on her back, Patricia Silas, 30, and her two neighbours escaped from Tin-Tin village late on Monday after funerals which saw scores of bodies of women, children and men buried in mass graves.

"We are fleeing our village because we are afraid we might be the next target of attack by these Fulani," she told AFP.

"They have been making phone calls warning they are going to attack. We take these threats seriously, we don't want to be caught off-guard," she added.

She says the threats came from Fulanis who used to live in their village but left after the outbreak of violence January which left at least 326 people dead.

"They are saying they want to avenge their loss," said Silas, whose village also suffered during January's attacks, when mainly Muslims were killed by suspected Christian activists.

As relatives attended funerals for the victims of the three-hour orgy of violence in three Christian villages, men huddled in small groups at Dogo Nahawa. One young man was overheard saying: "We will take revenge". Related article: Survivors' pain as victims buried

Officials said more than 500 people -- mainly women and children -- were hacked to death with machetes, axes and daggers in three villages of Dogo Nahawa, Ratsat and Zot, south of Jos city

Tensions ran high on Monday with a soldier shot dead while trying to calm Berom Christian youths in Bukuru town, 20 kilometres (13 miles) south of Jos.

"He is from there and he was appealing for calm in their local language when someone from the crowd shot him a close range," a military source told AFP.

The military on Monday shot dead a student taking part in a demonstration in downtown Jos after he ignored orders from the army to stop, witnesses said.

Nigeria's main opposition Action Congress (AC) accused the federal government of "hypocrisy in its reaction to the latest violence in Jos".

"Concrete action to stop the cycle of impunity, rather than crocodile tears, will end the violence," it said.

The AC said perpetrators of violence in recent years in Jos and its environs have not been brought to justice.

"With the mass burial of the victims, the issue is buried until the violence flares up again. That is why the perpetrators are encouraged to continue their dastardly act," said AC.

The weekend violence was just the latest between rival ethnic and religious groups.

Locals said Sunday's attacks were the result of a feud which had been first ignited by a theft of cattle and then fuelled by deadly reprisals.

Rights activists also said the slaughter appeared to be revenge for the January attacks, in which mainly Muslims were killed.

Nigeria kidnappers free South African captive

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 08:02:00 -0500

A South African TV worker has been freed by Nigerian kidnappers a week after he was taken near the oil-rich Delta region.

Nick Greyling, a sound engineer from South African TV channel SuperSport, was abducted along with two Nigerian co-workers in Owerri.

One of his colleagues escaped a day after the abduction, but the fate of the other man is not yet clear.

The men were seized after they had been covering a football match in Enugu.

Nomfanelo Kota, from South Africa's international relations department, confirmed Mr Greyling's release.

"We would like to thank the Nigerian government for its co-operation and we wish the citizen well as he returns home," she told South African news agency Sapa.

Militant groups and opportunistic gangs kidnap foreigners relatively often in the volatile delta region.

AFP news agency quoted security sources as saying a ransom of $100,000 (£67,000) was paid for the release of the South African man, though there was no official confirmation.

Militants in the Niger Delta have cost Nigeria's oil industry millions of dollars over the years.

A variety of groups have claimed to be fighting for the rights of local people to gain a greater share of the region's wealth.

But in reality, many of the groups have stolen oil from pipelines and extracted ransoms from kidnaps, using the money to arm themselves and finance more attacks.

More than 500 people slaughtered in machete 'revenge' attacks on Christian villages in Nigeria

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 09:41:00 -0500

Rioters armed with machetes have slaughtered more than 500 people in a revenge attack following religious clashes near Nigeria's city of Jos.

The violence in three mostly Christian villages appeared to be reprisal attacks following the January unrest in Jos - when most of the victims were Muslims.

There is a long history of local tension between Muslims and Christians. Mass burials for the victims will take place later today.

The bodies of the dead lined dusty streets in three villages south of the regional capital of Jos

One young victim appeared to have been scalped, while others had severed hands and feet. One woman victim in the morgue appeared to have been stripped below the waist, but later covered by a strip of black cloth.

Jos has been under a dusk-til-dawn curfew enforced by the military since January's religious-based violence.

Rioting in September 2001 killed more than 1,000 people and Muslim-Christian battles killed up to 700 people in 2004. More than 300 residents died during a similar uprising in 2008.

Acting President Goodluck Jonathan said security agencies would be stationed along Plateau state's borders to keep outsiders from coming in with more weapons and fighters.

'(We will) undertake strategic initiatives to confront and defeat these roving bands of killers,' he said in a statement.

'While it is too early to state categorically what is responsible for this renewed wave of violence, we want to inform Nigerians that the security services are on top of the situation.'

More than 600 people fled to a makeshift camp that still held victims from January's violence, said Red Cross official Adamu Abubakar.

He expected more to come, putting an even bigger strain on the already limited humanitarian aid for those fleeing the violence.

The killings represent the latest religious violence in an area once known as Nigeria's top tourist destination, adding to the tally of thousands already killed in the last decade in the name of religious and political ambitions.

Jos lies in Nigeria's 'middle belt,' where dozens of ethnic groups mingle in a band of fertile and hotly contested land separating the Muslim north from the predominantly Christian south.

In Jos, Muslims have complained about being denied jobs and other benefits by the Christian-dominated government.

However, many Muslims also operate shops and businesses in a nearby town where the tourist trade has dried up and the surrounding tin mines have been abandoned, stoking fears for Christians about retaliation from Muslim neighbours.

In Dogo Nahawa, a village three miles south of Jos, residents said the dead included a 4-day-old infant.

The horrific attacks have taken place at village near the town of Jos

Those who survived claimed their attackers shouted at them in Hausa and Fulani - two local languages used by Muslims.

Yenlong, the state government spokesman, also said police were seeking to arrest Saleh Bayari, the regional leader of the Fulanis, because Bayari's comments incited the attack. He offered no other details.

But the chairman of the local Fulani organization denied that his people were involved in the attack.

Nigerian military units began surrounding the affected villages Sunday afternoon, Waubo, the Red Cross spokesman, said.

He said the agency did not know how many people may have died in the fighting but workers have been sent to local morgues and hospitals to check.

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Togo opposition vows to challenge election result

Sun, 07 Mar 2010 16:58:00 -0500

The main opposition party in Togo says it does not recognise the result of the election that has returned President Faure Gnassingbe to power.

The Union of Forces for Change said there was widespread fraud and it planned to challenge the result in the country's Constitutional Court.

The party said its leader, Jean-Pierre Fabre, had won the poll and would form the next government.

Mr Gnassingbe is the son of a late dictator of Togo.

He won 1.2 million votes of two million cast, officials said, considerably more than his rival's tally of 692,584, election officials said.

Calm, so far

But the UFC's director of communications, Eric Dupuy, said the results from the country's 35 constituencies were read out before being validated at the electoral commission and the announcement was illegal.

Mr Dupuy told the BBC the party was challenging the result, even though it had no faith in the Constitutional Court as an independent body.

Jean-Pierre Fabre says he won the election

"We shall fight," Mr Dupuy was quoted by AFP news agency as saying.

Reaction on the street has been limited with a small opposition demonstration quickly dispersed by tear gas on Saturday, says the BBC's Caspar Leighton in the Togolese capital, Lome.

International observers have praised the relatively peaceful nature of the election.

But they have also pointed to deficiencies at all stages of the process without saying whether they were enough to effect the outcome, our correspondent says.

In 2005, when President Gnassingbe won his first term, there was massive violence and hundreds of people were killed.

In the run up to this vote, all parties called for calm. So far the calm is just about holding, says our correspondent.

Reporter: More than 200 dead in Nigeria violence

Sun, 07 Mar 2010 10:30:00 -0500

JOS, Nigeria – A reporter says he counted more than 200 dead bodies after renewed religious violence between Christians and Muslims in central Nigeria.

Yemi Kosoko, a reporter with the independent Nigerian news network Channels, told The Associated Press on Sunday that most of the bodies appeared to be women and children killed by blows from machetes. Kosoko says he made the count Sunday afternoon with an official from the state government in a village just south of the city of Jos.

A Red Cross spokesman says the military has surrounded the villages affected by the violence and hundreds of people have fled.

More than 300 people died in religious violence in January around Jos. Sectarian violence in this region of Nigeria has left thousands dead over the past decade.