MAIDUGURI – Nigerian authorities collected hundreds of bodies from the streets of the northern city of Maiduguri yesterday following days of clashes with members of a radical Islamic sect.
Government and health ministry officials piled the corpses, some swollen after lying in the streets for days, onto open trucks as police and soldiers patrolled.
“As of yesterday we had more than 200 dead bodies,” said Aliyu Maikano, northeastern zone disaster management officer for the Nigerian Red Cross, adding that bodies were still being collected.
The toll in Maiduguri brings to at least 300 the total number of people killed in violence that has erupted in several states in northern Nigeria since Sunday.
The authorities are hoping the killing of sect leader Mohammed Yusuf, whose Boko Haram movement is seeking a wider adoption of Sharia law across Africa’s most populous nation, will bring an end to the six-day uprising by his followers.
Yusuf (39) was shot dead in police detention late on Thursday.
Officials have said he died in a shoot-out while trying to escape, but rights groups have condemned what appeared to have been an execution-style killing.
Hundreds gathered to see Yusuf’s corpse, laid on the ground in front of Maiduguri police headquarters alongside the bodies of other presumed Boko Haram members. “I want to see the body of Mohammed Yusuf to know the man who has caused us so much pain and hardship. May his soul rot in hell,” said Maiduguri resident Nasir Abba.
Eric Guttschuss, Human Rights Watch researcher for Nigeria, described Yusuf’s killing as “a shocking example of the brazen contempt by the Nigerian police for the rule of law”.
A Reuters reporter earlier counted 23 bodies with what appeared to be fresh bullet wounds, among them a former state commissioner for religious affairs believed to be a Boko Haram supporter, Alhaji Buji Fai.
“Alhaji Buji Fai was killed along with other fleeing Boko Haram in an exchange of fire this morning along Benishek-Maiduguri road,” said Isa Azare, spokesman for the police command in Maiduguri.
Mr Maikano said 182 people were being treated at two hospitals in Maiduguri for gunshot wounds, machete blows, knife wounds and beatings. “These are civilians . . . we have not identified any Muslim sect members among these injured,” he said.
He said about 3,500 displaced people were sheltering in barracks but, encouraged by the killing of Yusuf and other sect members, many had started to return home.
The uprising began on Sunday when members of the group – loosely modelled on the Taliban and whose name means “western education is sinful” – were arrested in Bauchi state on suspicion of plotting to attack a police station. Yusuf’s supporters, armed with machetes, knives, homemade hunting rifles and petrol bombs, then rioted, attacking churches, police stations, prisons and government buildings.
Nigerian president Umaru Yar’Adua said the group was procuring arms and learning to make bombs to impose its ideology on Nigerians by force. He ordered the security forces to do everything necessary to contain the sect.
At least a dozen soldiers, police officers and prison officials are among the hundreds killed.
Boko Haram’s views are not espoused by the majority of Nigeria’s Muslim population, the largest in sub-Saharan Africa. The country’s Muslim umbrella group, Jama’atu Nasril Islam, has condemned the violence. – (Reuters)