Kano: Christians and Muslims
clashed in eastern Nigeria, leaving eight people dead and 40
seriously wounded, with six mosques and one church also
torched, police said Wednesday.
In the latest sectarian violence to rock the country,
fighting broke out yesterday between Muslim and Christian
youths in Wukari, a town in Taraba state, over the building of
a mosque on the premises of a local police headquarters.
A Christian mob opposed to the construction of the
mosque razed it, Taraba state Police Commissioner Aliyu Musa
said by phone from the state capital Jalingo.
Muslims responded by attacking a nearby church,
leading to the eruption of violence between the two sides,
Musa said.
"From reports at our disposal, eight people have been
killed and 40 others seriously injured in the violence while
six mosques and one church were burnt," Musa said.
Police sent in reinforcements and the situation was
calm in remote Taraba, one of Nigeria's 36 states, today, he
said.
Taraba, which neighbours Plateau, the central Nigerian
state whose capital Jos is a sectarian flashpoint, is
predominantly Christian.
Sectarian clashes occur frequently in Nigeria,
particularly in the country's north, with hundreds of people
killed in violence this year alone.
The new clashes come weeks ahead of the one-year
anniversary of an uprising by an Islamist sect in the northern
city of Maiduguri.
Nigerian police and troops crushed the uprising by the
Boko Haram sect -- which has also been called the Nigerian
Taliban -- after four days of street battles that left more
than 800 dead, mostly sect members.
The country's 150 million population is roughly
divided in half between Muslims and Christians.
Plateau state lies in the so-called middle belt
between the predominantly Muslim north and the mainly
Christian south.
Bureau Report
First Published: Wednesday, July 14, 2010, 21:42