500 butchered in Nigeria killing fields by Muslim gangs in latest clash between Muslims and Christians in Nigeria

Dozens of bodies lined the dusty streets of three Christian villages in northern Nigeria yesterday. Other victims of Sunday morning’s Muslim rampage were jammed into a local morgue, the limbs of slaughtered children tangled in a grotesque mess.

One toddler appeared fixed in the protective but hopeless embrace of an older child, possibly his brother. Another had been scalped. Most had severed hands and feet.

Officials estimate that 500 people were massacred in night-time raids by Muslim gangs near Jos, the city that bestrides Nigeria’s Christian-Muslim fault line.

Local journalists and civil rights organisations who toured the area yesterday told The Times they had counted at least 200 victims shot and hacked to death in apparent revenge for sectarian violence in January that claimed about 300 lives from the two communities. Mark Lipdo, a co-ordinator for the Stefanos Foundation, a Christian aid group, confirmed at least 93 dead in one village. “But there are corpses charred beyond recognition,” he said.

Survivors claimed that Muslim inhabitants of the targeted villages of Zot, Dogo Nahawa and Rastat had received telephone calls two days before the attack telling them to leave the area.

Witnesses said gangs waited at main entry points to the villages while others went from house to house, setting the homes on fire.

Those who fled were killed at the exit points. Others were slaughtered after being caught in animal traps and nets as they ran in the dark.

Ben Kwashi, Anglican Archbishop of Jos, said he visited one of three villages engulfed by the violence. “I could see kids from age zero to teenagers, all butchered from the back, macheted in their necks, their heads. Deep cuts in the mouths of babies. The stench. People wailing and crying,” he said.

Nigeria’s Acting President Goodluck Jonathan, a southerner, ordered troops into the riot-affected area “to confront and defeat these roving bands of killers”, he said in a statement. Last night he sacked Sarki Mukhtar, the national security adviser, a powerful figure in the inner circle of the ailing President, Umaru Yar’Adua.

Villagers said army assistance came too late. Christian youths accused the military of complicity in the killings.

Survivors told The Times that entire families were killed, some to the chants of Allahu Akbar — God is Greatest. They said villagers awoke to shouting and gunfire at about 3am on Sunday.

“They then set homes on fire and attacked men, women and children. Many were decapitated,” said Theresa Malinowska, press officer for Christian Solidarity Worldwide. Staff counted the bodies of four babies and 28 children under 5 in one location alone.

Jos is the regional capital of Plateau State, where Christians from Nigeria’s south and Muslims from the north compete over the fertile farmland. The area has often been a flashpoint. In rioting in September 2001 1,000 people died and Muslim-Christian battles killed up to 700 people in 2004.

Jos has been under a dusk-until-dawn curfew since January’s violence. Archbishop Kwashi said he believed a significant organisation was behind the killings because they happened during curfew, with the army in the area.

“I think it is all Christians killed. The Muslims, I heard, had left the village. The kind of co-operation that came into play — that could violate a curfew, that could take the law into their own hand. I worry which village, which town, will be next,” he said.

Additional reporting by a correspondent in Abuja

 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8555018.stm

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/africa/article7054630.ece

This comes a month after another massacre near the city of Jos, by Christians against Muslims.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TymrKm0nZhc&feature=youtube_gdata

We didn't support people only because they are Muslim, we support the right, the justice, this is what the real Islam teach us.     

There is some bad muslim people too, they didn't fellow the Islamic teaching.

If this is the truth, then they must judge for their act.     

Nigerian authorities have arrested nearly a hundred people in connection with attacks near the central city of Jos that killed more than 500 people.

Police and soldiers surrounded the village of Dogo Nahawa, about 15km south of Jos, as survivors buried the dead in mass graves on Monday.

Residents said herders from nearby hills attacked their village at about 3am (02:00GMT) on Sunday, shooting into the air before using machetes to cut down those who came out of their homes.

At least two other villages nearby were also targeted in an area close to where sectarian clashes killed hundreds of people in January.

Dan Manjang, an adviser to the government of Plateau State, where the attacks took place, said 95 arrests had been made.

Al Jazeera's Yvonne Ndege, reporting from Jos, said the government had confirmed Sunday's death toll at more than 500 and had launched a huge security operation in an attempt to stop the violence from spreading to other states.

Resources and religion

But she added that while many people would view the violence in a religious context, people she had spoken to said the violence was about indigenous groups, who are mainly Christian, and migrants and settlers, mainly from the Hausa-speaking Muslim north, competing for access to resources.

The latest violence in the centre of Africa's most populous nation comes at a time of uncertainty for the country, with Goodluck Jonathan, the acting president, trying to assert his authority while Umaru Yar'Adua, the president, remains too sick to govern.

In a statement after Sunday's attack, Jonathan's office said he had "directed that the security services undertake strategic initiatives to confront and defeat these roving bands of killers".

Mohammed Lerama, a police spokesman, said the official death toll stood at 55 so far, but Gregory Yenlong, Plateau State's Commissioner for Information, said: We are estimating 500 people killed but I think it should be a little bit above that."

Yenlong added that "soldiers are patrolling and everywhere remains calm", but security officials have been criticised for failing to prevent another outburst of violence just weeks after hundreds died in Muslim-Christian clashes.

The violence in the three, mostly Christian, villages on Sunday appeared to be reprisal attacks following the January unrest in Jos when most of the victims were Muslims, Robin Waubo, a Red Cross spokesman, said.

Nice attempt at changing the subject. Give me an example of Jews going around and massacring 500 Arabs at a time.

It's a story that everyone should hear, and not be silenced just because it 'might' make Muslims look bad. I'm smart enough to differentiate and conclude that obviously Muslims around the world don't share the blame.

But while you're constantly posting articles that show Muslims as victims in different parts of the world, here is a story of the opposite. Plus this was a top news story yesterday.

Stick to the topic.

they killed more than 1400 people in 20 days, and thousands in Lebanon and so on, and we do not talk about 1947 and 1948

Never did Jews go around into Arab villages and murder everyone. No historian corroborates these stories that Arabs tell among each other. 

Deir Yassin is one thing, but even that was maybe a dozen Arabs, and was stopped by local Jews who saw what they were doing.

In Lebanon on Gaza, the deaths were unfortunately part of the casualities of modern warfare, and definitely not all, not even most, of the deaths were cvilians.

What we have here is a wholesale slaughter of Christians by marauding Muslim gangs. Again, all of this has nothing to do with the topic.

last month ago, there were hundreds of muslims killed by christians, without talking about and called to protect them and judge the responsible.

I don't remember a wholesale killing of Muslims in villages like this. But go ahead, post the link so that others can see it.

This is current events, hence why it was posted.

you just shout when it's about muslim, trying to say those are the muslims.

Well, wasn't it? 

We just say the true, although was not in our side, and always say the bad things committed by a few of muslims, and we are not defending them, and we show the true of Islam.

Then go ahead. I didn't say this was the true face of Islam, or that these people are following Islam by doing this.
These are however, by all accounts, Muslims who are attacking Christians in Nigeria, apart of the general troubles between the two communities.

It's shocking to everyone, and to me too, so that is why I posted it.

You're free to do the same about massacres against Muslims, which you do anyway generally. You or one of the other users on here.

http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/fotostrecke-50987.html

i can't see on this pictures who is Muslim and who is Christian,i can only see poor african civilists….for me it is always difficult to understand wars… but when poor people slaughter each other because of their different believes i really can't understand the reason and who take benefit  from this slaughtery??

would it be interesting if the title wasnt "Christians against Muslims : War of religions!!" ??  Boah. Even I get interested when I read the title.

sure the massacre christian against Muslim or Muslim against christian are done in the name of the religion….but this is only secondar some mighty clans used the believers for to get the resources in this region.. you can find resorces like colombit,Sn and Cn  in this region jos, these are the main reason i guess.

"""Nigeria is a resource-rich country, though its economy has been greatly mismanaged. It is the world's largest producer of columbite, a mineral containing iron, magnesium, and niobium."""

the biggest tragedy for Nigeria was in the history the africa conference in berlin1878.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Conference_%281884%29

the colonial states cut on a map Africa in pieces they didn't take care about the growing structure of African races and cultures so it came that Nigeria is a multiethnic state with lot of ethnic cultural tensions.since this conference it was part of the colonization to eliminate a self government…so it came that nowadays Nigeria is mismanaged.sure the colonization time is over but the big oil companies are act like the former colonial states….the people have no benefit from the oil wealth…

first the nigerian state must get a fair price for their sold commodities

second the un must help that this money come to the people not to the war lords…with this money should be build a better infrastructure a better education system a better social system….

third : the million of well educated Nigerian in abroad should get support when they go back to their country to rebuild the state.

and last but not least the Christan church and the muslim scholars should teach their believers to be deescalate and to be resistant against manipulation through the clans and war lords…believers are peaceful people they are not bloody manipulated warriors

indeed there is a reaction on both sides for a dialog

http://234next.com/csp/cms/sites/Next/Home/5538276-146/story.csp

this are in short my 20 minutes thoughts how to solve the problem in Nigeria .i know my thought can't solve the problem…only the Nigerian can solve their problem maybe with the help of the UN.

I think some people try to take advantages from the war, and they live from it, it's why this country need a strong governments which make the peace, by justice and issure the security between different kind of rootes and cultures.

abrahamid sure this would be a way to solve the problems….but the first step must be a dialog between the cultures…..look  the history of Europe had been always a battlefield ….millions of killed people is the  bloody history of Europa but no dictator and no strong government cold solve the problems between the cultures….it was the dialog between the cultures and political visions!now we European need no passport when we travel through Europa

Nice attempt at changing the subject. Give me an example of Jews going around and massacring 500 Arabs at a time.

yeah u r right, they don't kill 500 Arabs at a time but 5000 arabs