Jos (Nigeria): Pope Benedict XVI denounced the "atrocious" bloodshed in Nigeria on Wednesday after a massacre of Christian villagers, as police said 49 people would be charged over the killings.
As new gunfire added to the tensions around the flashpoint city of Jos, the pope added his voice to a chorus of international revulsion over the weekend slaughter which police say left 109 people dead but the state information commissioner said left more than 500 dead.
In his weekly general audience, Benedict offered condolences to the victims of the "atrocious violence causing bloodshed in Nigeria" and urged civil and religious leaders "to work towards security and peaceful co-existence".
"Violence does not resolve conflicts but only increases the tragic consequences," he added.
The three-hour killing spree in the early hours of Sunday was the latest wave of sectarian violence to engulf the Jos region where several hundred people were killed in Muslim-Christian clashes in January.
The security forces have faced heavy criticism over their failure to intervene to stop the latest killings at a time when a curfew was meant to be in force.
Although troop reinforcements have been deployed, Jonah Jang, governor of Plateau state, said security lapses had worsened the carnage.
Jang told reporters he had alerted Nigeria`s army commander about reports of movement around the area and had been told that troops would be heading there.
"Three hours or so later, I was woken by a call that they (armed gangs) had started burning the village and people were being hacked to death.
"I tried to locate the commanders, I couldn?t get any of them on the telephone."
Officials in Plateau State said more than 500 people, mostly women and children, were killed when members of the mainly Muslim Fulani ethnic group butchered their victims from the Christian Berom clan in three villages.
But the state police commissioner Ikechukwu Aduba on Wednesday gave a breakdown of the list of people killed, saying the toll was 109.
"This figure is authentic and undisputed," he said, adding that the larger figure quoted by other officials were fabricated.
Aduba also revealed that 49 people were to be charged over the killings, saying they had already confessed to being on a revenge mission.
Residents have said the killings on Sunday were part of a spiralling feud between the Fulani, who are nomadic herders, and Berom, who are farmers, which had been sparked by the theft of cattle. Analysis: Land disputes, politics fuel Jos violence
"Charges for those arrested will be conspiracy and culpable homicide," said Aduba.
An illustration of the tensions came overnight when residents piled into police barracks after an eruption of gunfire. It later emerged the firing had been caused by soldiers trying to disperse crowds of mainly Christian youths.
"Because of the tension and anxiety in the area, we took it for a gunfight and left our homes for the police barracks," Josephine Emmanuel, a resident of the village of Bukka Uku, said to a news agency.
Residents said soldiers remained on the streets of Jos, where thousands have died in ethnic strife in recent years and which lies on the dividing line between Nigeria`s mainly Muslim north and Christian dominated south.
Troops also patrolled the three villages where the massacre took place but residents of neighbouring villages said they had received new threats.
Eyewitness account: Slaughter of the innocentsSome survivors told of the attacks as they recovered. In a surgical ward of Jos hospital, women with deep scalp wounds mourned the loss of their children.
Chindum Yakubu, a 30-year-old mother of four, described the screams of her 18-month-old daughter who was plucked from her back and hacked to death as the family tried to flee the pre-dawn attacks.
"They removed the baby and killed her with the machete," Yakubu said.
There are growing fears about ethnic tensions in and around Jos.
"One moment it`s relaxed, then the next moment people are running for their dear life," said hospital administrator Ruth Mutfwang, summing up life in the restive region.
Bureau Report
