**A Christian organisation in Nigeria has accused government security forces of failing to stop hundreds being killed in clashes near the city of Jos.**Hundreds died during attacks on three villages over the weekend in an area which straddles the country’s mainly Christian south and Muslim north.
The massacre is seen as revenge for a previous round of killings in January.
The head of the northern area of Nigeria’s Christian Association said he believed mercenaries were involved.
Military curfew
He said that fighters from neighbouring Chad and Niger took part in the violence.
ANALYSIS
Caroline Duffield, BBC News, LagosAlready this is being described as retaliation for the outburst of killing in January in which hundreds more people were killed.
Back then the largest losses were suffered by the Hausa Fulani community. In the village of Kuru Karama more than 100 people were killed and their bodies thrown into wells and sewers. Grave accusations were made that the local government had stoked the violence. This time it is clear that the targets were Berom Christians.
For weeks there have been rumours of retaliation in these villages and people have been living in a state of anxiety. Many families left. These killings are often painted by local politicians as a religious or sectarian conflict. In fact it is a struggle between ethnic groups for fertile land and resources in the region known as Nigeria’s Middle Belt.
“For quite some time we have alerted the government to training grounds in some part of the northern state where people are being trained to cause problems in the country… Nobody did anything about it,” Saidu Dogo told the BBC.
“Many people come into Nigeria under the pretext of [being] pastoralists, they are mercenaries. They follow pastoralist routes to gain entrance, carry out their activities and then leave,” he said.
Authorities believe the attacks on the three village near the Plateau state capital, Jos, were an act of revenge carried out by members of the mainly Muslim Fulani community.
The US and human rights campaign groups have urged the government to arrest and try those responsible for killing hundreds of people near the city.
“The Nigerian government should ensure that the perpetrators of acts of violence are brought to justice under the rule of law, and that human rights are respected as order is restored,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said.
Resources conflict
But Mr Dogo urged the international community to become more actively involved as, he said, the government was unable to protect its own people.
“We feel that the world just has to do something. If the Nigerian government cannot do something then the world has to do something to stop this killing.”
Acting President Goodluck Jonathan has sacked the country’s national security adviser, Sarki Mukhtar, in an apparent response to the killings.
But the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, said that the villages should have been properly protected after the January killings.
“Clearly, previous efforts to tackle the underlying causes have been inadequate, and in the meantime the wounds have festered and grown deeper,” she said, according to the Associated Press.
JOS, PLATEAU STATE
- Deadly riots in 2001, 2008 and 2010
- City divided into Christian and Muslim areas
- Divisions accentuated by system of classifying people as indigenes and settlers
- Hausa-speaking Muslims living in Jos for decades are still classified as settlers
- Settlers find it difficult to stand for election
- Communities divided along party lines: Christians mostly back the ruling PDP; Muslims generally supporting the opposition ANPP
In pictures: Mourning in Nigeria
Your stories of the violent attacks
Nigerian troops are patrolling the villages which were targeted on Sunday in a bid to prevent further violence and police say they have arrested more than 90 people suspected of inciting violence, AP reports.
But residents of nearby communities say they are already getting ready to leave, fearful of a fresh wave of violence.
“We are fleeing our village because we are afraid we might be the next target of attack by these Fulani,” Patricia Silas, 30, told Agence France Presse.
“They have been making phone calls warning they are going to attack. We take these threats seriously. We don’t want to be caught off-guard.”
Many of the dead in the villages of Zot and Dogo-Nahawa, largely inhabited by Christian members of the Berom community, are reported to be women and children.
Clashes have broken out periodically since 2001, with competition for resources and political power seen as being at the heart of the conflicts between the rival communities.