Dead bodies in Jos
By Associated Press JOS, Nigeria (AP) — Christian youths attacked
a car full of Muslims
returning from a wedding
in central Nigeria, killing
seven people inside the
vehicle and sparking retaliatory violence that
left one other person
dead, an official said
Saturday. It was the latest unrest in
a fertile region that saw
more than 500 people
killed last year in
massacres pitting
Christians against Muslims. On Saturday, gunshots
echoed through the
troubled city of Jos,
causing store owners to
close their shops and
families to hide inside their homes. The violence began as
Christian youths blocked a
road leading from a
neighboring village Friday
night, trapping the
Muslims inside their car, said lawyer Ahmed Garba,
a member of an Islamic
religious council. Garba
told journalists Saturday
that seven people died in
the attack and one person survived. Garba said once news of
the attack spread, Muslims
began retaliatory violence
in the streets of Jos that
has left at least one person
dead. Plateau state police
commissioner
Abdurrahman Akano said
investigators received
word of the Friday night
attack, but had not found any bodies. That is not
uncommon as Muslims
traditionally bury their
dead as soon as possible. Manassie Panpe, the Red
Cross' state secretary, said
officials from the aid
organization had found
several injured people in
the streets Saturday but that information
remained scarce. Nigeria, an oil-rich country
of 150 million people, is
almost evenly split
between Muslims in the
north and the
predominantly Christian south. Jos is in the nation's
"middle belt," where
dozens of ethnic groups
vie for control of fertile
lands. The Jos violence, though
fractured across religious
lines, often has more to do
with local politics,
economics and rights to
grazing lands. The government of Plateau
state, where Jos is the
capital, is controlled by
Christian politicians who
have blocked Muslims
from being legally recognized as citizens.
That has locked many out
of prized government
jobs in a region where the
tourism industry and tin
mining have collapsed in the last decades. On Christmas Eve, two
bombs went off near a
large market in Jos where
people were doing last-
minute Christmas
shopping. A third hit a mainly Christian area of
Jos, while the fourth was
near a road that leads to
the city's main mosque. Officials initially said at
least 32 died from the
blasts, while an official
with the National
Emergency Management
Agency told journalists that he had counted 80
deaths from the
explosions and the
retaliatory violence that
followed. An Internet message
attributed to radical
Muslim sect known in
northern Nigeria as Boko
Haram claimed
responsibility for the bomb attacks. However,
the sect had never carried
out an attack in that
region before,

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