More Than 100 Dead, 1,000 Wounded in Nigeria Feud

Society Pakistan & World Affairs
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OK. I’m starting to become a believer that Muslims and Christians really are at war with one another (or soon will be). Even among Muslim cattle herders and Christian subsistence farmers living in the Nigerian wilderness, the battle is being fought. The killings are primarily by cutlasses and in arson attacks. Recent clashes have killed more than 100, wounded 1,000, and displaced 25,000. The death toll in the last 2 ½ months is more than 350. More than 10,000 people have been killed in ethnic, religious and political violence in Nigeria since the 1999 election of President Olusegun Obasanjo.

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=5003197&section=news

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the muslims must be the terrorist ones.. :)

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It just goes to show that you don't need bullets, guns or high tech weapons for Christians and Muslims to try to kill each other. In this case, a sharp cutlass will do.

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Well yes it's unfortunate but so was rwanda, it's up to people like me and you to get out there and raise awareness and rouse nations into action.

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^ I thought the Niegerians had a pretty good sized army. Heck, haven't they sent some of their troops out as peacekeepers in other AFrican countries? Why isn't the Nigerian government doing something to establish law and order in Nigeria?

Maybe the government is OK with this as long as the cattle herders kill more subsidence farmers or vice versa or so long as the killing is about equal on both sides.

On the bigger outlook, it pretty much sounds to me like so long as there is a Christian and a Muslim in the same neighborhood, they'll go after each other even if the only weapon available is a friggin rock. BTW: I've already collected all the choice stones on my street and stockpiled them in my garage. :) )

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Don’t worry, we have the UN, and they will take care of this crisis with great skill and clarity as they have so many other critical arenas.

:rolleyes:

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Nope. This isn't Muslim v. Christian (or Christian v. Muslim) violence. Just violence by two parties who happen to have different religions. Over there the problems are more social than religious. They're fighting over resources, not ideology. The different clans there evolved over time, each competing against the other, especially in resources, and as they did they had a tendency to be contrarian. One side takes up Islam, the other takes an 'opposing' religion just for the hell of it. Yeah, the folks there can be crazily pious, but it's not the root of their problems.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by myvoice: *
Maybe the government is OK with this as long as the cattle herders kill more subsidence farmers or vice versa or so long as the killing is about equal on both sides.
[/QUOTE]
Yep, pretty much. As long as it stays relatively small and localized (those are high bars). It's kinda a cruel thing to say, but really it's just like seasonal flooding.. you know it's gonna happen so you just have to hope to last through it and that it doesn't spread.

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I'm actually surprised that this is even making headlines. I think it's probably because of the mess in Thailand.. journalists would like you to think that the world is falling apart, it's got a sort of built in awareness because of Thailand (though not simply because Muslims are involved in both places, don't waste bandwidth on that).

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Now here are your ‘pious’ idiots in Nigeria:
Zamfara Gov. Orders Demolition of All Churches](http://allafrica.com/stories/200404290789.html)

Governor Ahmed Sani of Zamfara State, has ordered the demolition of all churches in the state, as he launched the second phase of his Sharia project yesterday.

Speaking at the launch in Gusau, the state capital, Governor Sani disclosed that time was ripe for full implementation of the programme as enshrined in the Holy Quran.

He added that his government would soon embark on demolition of all places of worship of unbelievers in the state, in line with Islamic injunction to fight them wherever they are found.

…

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More on the mess in Taraba and Plateau states, with some added (but not much) background:
Nigerian Villagers Caught in Bloody Ethnic Feud](Yahoo News: Latest and Breaking News, Headlines, Live Updates, and More)

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Muslims killed, homes and mosques demolished in Nigeria

More than 300 Nigerian Muslims killed in Christian attack . More than 300 Muslims are dead and 120 missing after Christians attacked a central Nigerian town, one of Nigeria’s most senior Islamic leaders said, branding the assault “mass murder”. Nigeria has been experiencing Christian-Muslim violence for years. More than 11,000 people have been killed since 1999. Last week Thais killed hundreds of Muslims in Southern Thailand.

Looks like a Christian-Muslim civil war in Nigeria, similar to the one in Lebanon couple of years back,

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_world/view/83367/1/.html

http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=504908&section=news
ABUJA, Nigeria – Fighters of a predominantly Christian tribe attacked a town dominated by a rival Muslim ethnic group, razing homes and mosques and killing at least 80 people, Nigerian police said Tuesday.

The ethnic Tarok assailants, armed with machetes, British colonial-era muskets and homemade guns, attacked the predominantly Hausa town of Yelwa, 210 miles east of the capital of Abuja, early Monday morning, said Raymond Nyama, a police officer who visited the scene.

Police counted 80 bodies littering otherwise abandoned streets, Nyama added. An unknown number of mosques were burned.

The death toll was likely to rise as police and family members collected bodies, a police commander said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Nigeria’s ThisDay newspaper put the death toll at 100 or more, with three mosques and more than 1,000 homes destroyed.

Tens of thousands of residents were fleeing the area on foot, carrying whatever possessions they could carry, police said.

Some 600 police were deployed to the area to restore calm and prevent revenge attacks, national police spokesman Chris Olakpe said.

“Peace must be maintained at all costs,” he said.

Although motives were unclear, the attack happened a week after Hausas launched an attack on the Tarok village of Kawo, burning churches and inflicting an unknown number of casualties.

The Christian Tarok farmers and predominantly-Muslim Hausa traders and cattle herders have launched back-and-forth raids since an outbreak of religious violence in the city of Jos killed more than 1,000 people in September 2001.

Since January, violence has surged, killing hundreds in the region of fertile farms and pastures, police and civic groups say.

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Oh God!

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^ Looks like total absence of control now. Add 600+ Christians who have been burned and hacked to death by rioting Muslim mobs to the death toll.

KANO, Nigeria (Reuters) - Christians chased out of their homes by Muslims during bloody riots in Nigeria’s northern city of Kano boarded buses to leave town as fresh clashes broke out Friday.

Hundreds of people, mostly Christians, have been burned and hacked to death by rioting Muslim mobs since Tuesday in a reprisal attack for the slaying of hundreds of Muslims in central Nigeria 10 days ago.

“People are saturated with fear, especially today being Friday, so they are leaving,” said Adamson Gbangange, from Gombe in eastern Nigeria, as he boarded a bus heading east.

Rioting erupted again in the Badawa district of Nigeria’s second largest city Friday, hours after the end of Muslim Friday prayers, aid workers said.

“I am going back to my state because it has become impossible to live in Kano in peace. My house was burned with everything inside,” said Kenneth Samuel, a factory worker also from eastern Nigeria.

Thousands more Christians, many hungry and penniless, camped in police barracks across the city to escape rampaging youths armed with knives and gasoline.

About 1,000 Nigerians have probably died in religious fighting across the oil exporting country in two weeks, although officials decline to provide credible death tolls.

The Christian Association of Nigeria in Kano said almost 600 people were killed Tuesday and Wednesday alone, many times more than the police’s official death toll of 30.

An aid worker said she saw three truck loads of corpses delivered to Kano’s main hospital and expected more Friday.

“On Wednesday evening they brought in two trailor loads of bodies. There was one trailer load the previous day. A lot of people were killed. I think it is even more than 600,” said the medical worker, asking not to be named.

Full story at http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=5150309&pageNumber=0

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despicable as this is, i dont think this is because muslims and christians as a group cannot live together.

is there much international focus on this yet?

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MV, I don't think this is because the Muslim hordes there are any meaner than the Christian ones, they're just in the lead for the moment. Notice the part which you neglected to highlight: "Hundreds of people, mostly Christians, have been burned and hacked to death by rioting Muslim mobs since Tuesday in a reprisal attack for the slaying of **hundreds of Muslims** in central Nigeria 10 days ago."

Now, I do believe they are not acting properly in so indiscriminately retaliating, even if it is based on legitimate greivances. Muslims should not let rage overtake them, but they, like everyone, like their Christian opponents, are succeptable to it. Again, this is not something that can be framed as Muslim aggression against Christian innocents. The Christian factions are just as ruthless. But, still, this isn't over religion. Religion is just an easy, lazy way to describe the two sides.

How can this problem be addressed?

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^ Spoon:
Actually, I didn't highlight any part of the article.

Nowhere am I trying to imply that the ruthless Muslim mobs are any better or worse than the ruthless Christian mobs in Nigeria. imran dhanji posted the article of the killing of 300+ Muslims a several days ago.

Getting back to my first post, these incidents make it look like Muslims and Christians just can't seem to get along anywhere. You say this isn't about religion. Maybe or maybe not. Whatever the historical grievances these folks have with each other, they seem to have been insitutionalized within an easily recognizable cleavage whose most obvious characteristic is religion. Maybe the important differentiating feature is really that one side is cattle herders and the other side is subsistence farmers. But if religion had nothing to do with it, then you might expect that there would be Muslim subsistance farmers and Christian cattle herders. We don't seem to have Muslim cattle herders killing Muslim subsistance farmers or Christian subsistance farmers killing Christian cattle herders.

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They’re at it again.

It’s getting harder and harder to accept that this is not a clash of religion.

** "State officials said the violence erupted after youths from the predominantly Christian Bachama ethnic group, enraged by the rebuilding of the minaret overlooking the palace of their local chief, attacked the workers.

The minaret has been at the center of a dispute between the town’s minority Muslim community and the Bachama tribal chief who argued that the new structure was taller than before.

More than 11,000 people have died in religious, communal and political violence in the world’s seventh largest crude oil exporter since Obasanjo came to power in Nigeria five years ago. **

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=5394429

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[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by myvoice: *
They're at it again.

It's getting harder and harder to accept that this is not a clash of religion.
[/QUOTE]
Yes, unfortunately religion is a useful tool for ignorant, malicious people. I still don't see religion as a primary cause in any of this, but it is actively being promoted as such. Whatever it takes to rally the clan around a petty goal, I guess.

Question is, if this is religious in nature, shouldn't there be a religious solution?