News from Africa

25/03/2010 02:39 KANO, Nigeria, March 25 (AFP)
Nigerian flashpoint city still wracked by killings
Despite tightened security in the restive Nigerian city of Jos following recent sectarian massacres, a wave of revenge killings has claimed the lives of both Muslims and Christians.

The tension is so marked that inhabitants find it difficult to venture out in some parts of the central city, which lies on the faultline between the Muslim-majority north and the mainly Christian south.

"We now live in fear as a result of killings in the city, which makes it difficult for us to move about freely," Muhammad Sani Mudi, spokesman of the Hausa community of Muslims in Jos told AFP.

"We have lost 23 members to such secret killings in the past two weeks, while 58 others are still missing," he said late Tuesday.

On Tuesday, 25-year old student Adamu Haruna became the latest victim of the violence, said Hausa spokesman Mudi. He disappeared on the way to Friday prayers.

"He was last seen on Friday when he left his home for the central mosque," Mudi said on phone from Jos. His body, disfigured with machete cuts, was discovered at a city morgue, he added.

The dead and missing were mostly street sellers, newspaper vendors and drivers of motorcycle taxis, Mudi said.

But the same fear gripped the other side of the sectarian divide.

Donald Maiyaki, a Jos resident, said: "Everybody lives in fear in Jos due to these silent killings going on.

"I know of two Christian teenage students separately kidnapped in the past week. They are still missing".

Information commissioner of Plateau State, Gregory Yenlong, confirmed the problem.

"In the last two weeks not less than 20 people have been killed in selective killings," he said.

Nigeria's acting president Goodluck Jonathan deployed troops in Jos after the clashes in January, which left more than 300 mainly Muslims dead.

For a while, the troop presence brought a semblance of peace.

But earlier this month, in apparent reprisal attacks, Muslim Fulani herdsmen went on a killing spree in raids on Christian villages.

And although police say around 100 people were killed, state government officials have insisted that at least 500 ethnic Beroms perished in the attacks.

Plateau State police chief Ikechukwu Aduba has acknowledged the current tensions.

"The city has been polarised," he said recently.

"There are areas where a Christian will enter and Muslims will kill him and there are areas where a Muslim will enter and Christians will kill him.

"This is inimical to peaceful coexistence," he added.

"The police is aware of the secret killings in the city but we don't have data on the toll," Plateau police spokesman Mohammed Lerama said.

But efforts were underway to get religious leaders to work towards a lasting peace.

The troops are still visible in Jos, but the experts say it has only quelled the more overt, large-scale violence.

"The presence of troops has forced the warring factions to stop fighting openly but mutual animosity and resentment are still high and each faction stealthily strikes at the other , when it gets the chance," said Markus Kefas, a specialist at a private security agency.

"The troops can only patrol the major streets of the city and these killings are carried out in the recesses," he said.

Just last week the authorities relaxed by three hours a dusk-to-dawn curfew imposed on the city in the wake of the violence, arguing that the security situation had improved.

But Mudi said easing the curfew was a mistake, as it only gave the killers more cover.

For Kefas however, the curfew had no bearing on the problem, as most of the new wave of killings had happened in broad daylight.

"Therefore with or without curfew people bearing such animosity and resentment will carry out such attacks if they get the chance," said Kefas.

The most effective solution, he said, would in the end be genuine reconciliation.

But he warned: "The fear is that if these killings continue, there is the tendency of eruption of violence even with the presence of troops."

for how long will you cry and bleed each other to death? why o! why!!!! people?

This story just confirmed that there is more to these killings than Christians and Muslims fighting, cos the name Haruna is not Christian and is that was the latest victim, i think people need to know the truth of what is happening

i will shed no more tears for you any more, since you have not shown any mercy on yourselves.people grow up!