Related News

Home » World

Nigeria youths kill several Muslims during prayers

GANGS of armed youths in the volatile Nigerian city of Jos attacked Muslims as they gathered to celebrate the last day of Ramadan yesterday, killing a number of them and burning their cars, witnesses and the military said.
The city, which lies between the country's mostly Muslim north and the predominantly Christian south, has been a flash point for ethnic and sectarian tensions between the two faiths.
If the violence worsens or triggers reprisals, it may prove another major headache for President Goodluck Jonathan, whose security forces are already stretched by daily attacks from an Islamist sect in the northeast, which also claimed Friday's deadly bomb attack on the UN offices in Abuja that killed 23.
"The Muslim faithful went for their Eid prayers and on completion of the prayers they were trapped by the youths in that area," Brigadier General Hassan Umaru, commander of the military Special Task Force keeping security in Jos, told Reuters by telephone.
"They burnt some cars, quite a number of cars. The number of people killed, I can't give that yet. We are still checking with local hospital sources," he added. He said there had been several deaths.



 

Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.

沪公网安备 31010602000204号

Email this to your friend