NIGERIA: Dozens dead as sectarian violence continues in southern city

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

ONITSHA, 22 Feb 2006 (IRIN) - Packs of armed youths killed dozens of people and set fire to mosques and Muslim properties on Wednesday in more revenge attacks against Muslims in the mainly Christian southern Nigerian city of Onitsha.

Angered by weekend attacks against Christians in two northern cities, mobs of youths from the mainly Christian Igbo people, armed with machetes, clubs and cans of petrol, hunted down Hausa-speaking Muslim northerners, beating and burning them to death for the second day running.

Several residents and witnesses said more than 40 people, most of them northerners, had been killed in the two days of violence.

"Between yesterday and today I have counted no less than 40 bodies on Upper Iweka Road alone," Okechukwu Nwaka, a spare parts trader in Onitsha told IRIN, describing the main street into the city.

Ken Enemuo, another resident, said more than 50 people have been killed in the two days of violence, with at least 30 killed at the Bridge Head Market near the bank of the River Niger on Tuesday. "Some of the dead were dumped into the river by their killers. Today again no less than 20 people were killed."

Wednesday's violence in Onitsha was triggered by unconfirmed reports that some of the thousands of Muslim northerners who had taken refuge overnight at the city's military barracks had slipped out to attack a nearby primary school in the morning. Schools hurriedly closed across the city and mobs armed with a variety of weapons, including locally made pistols and shot guns, raced towards the military barracks.

Residents reported hearing gunfire from the direction of the military barracks but no details of casualties have emerged.

Nigerian police spokesman Haz Iwendi confirmed the violence in Onitsha and said reinforcements have been sent into the city to restore order. He confirmed there have been deaths but said police were still finalising casualty figures.

The violence came days after attacks against Christians in the northern city of Maiduguri on Saturday, in which police said at least 17 people were killed and 30 churches razed. Other violent protests on Monday and Tuesday in the mainly Muslim city of Bauchi left at least 25 people dead, according to the Nigerian Red Cross.

The weekend violence was fuelled by Muslim anger about cartoons published in Europe depicting the Prophet Muhammad.

Nigeria's more than 126 million people are roughly divided between a mainly Muslim north and a south populated largely by Christians and followers of other traditional faiths.

Thousands of people have died in sporadic violence in Nigeria since 2000, when a dozen predominantly Muslim states in the north began applying strict Islamic legal code or Shari'ah, amid rising apprehension among Christians suspecting hegemonic designs.

Initial protests by Nigerian Muslims against the cartoons, which were initially published in September, were relatively peaceful.

[ENDS]