JOS, Nigeria – Riot police patrolled the central Nigerian city of Jos yesterday after Christmas Eve bombings killed more than 30 people and sparked clashes two days later between Muslim and Christian youths.
A series of explosions on Friday killed at least 32 people and wounded more than 100, triggering Sunday’s violence, in which buildings were set alight and shots were fired.
Aloysius Okorie, deputy inspector general of police, said reinforcements had been sent to the scene of the fighting, and sought to talk down the severity of the unrest.
“Four mobile anti-riot police units have been deployed from Bauchi, Benue, Kano and Gombe states to assist the units on the ground in Jos to arrest the situation,” Insp Okorie said. “The situation is now under control.”
Robin Waudo, spokesman for the Red Cross, said 101 wounded people were being treated in hospital as of Sunday evening.
“We have a team of people coming from our office in Kano today to aid the work the Red Cross are doing here. There is a heavy security presence around Jos to try and secure the situation,” Mr Waudo said.
Hundreds of people died in religious and ethnic clashes at the start of the year in the middle belt of Africa’s most populous nation, where the mostly Muslim north meets the largely Christian south.
The tensions are built on decades of resentment between indigenous groups, mostly Christian or animist, who are vying for control of fertile farmlands and for economic and political power with mostly Muslim migrants and settlers from the north.
While religious conflict flares up sporadically in central Nigeria, co-ordinated bomb attacks have not featured in previous unrest. The governor of Plateau state has said those responsible for the blasts were politically motivated.
President Goodluck Jonathan will be keen to resolve the latest bout of violence quickly as the religious divide draws attention to tensions surrounding his attempt to lead Nigeria’s main party in a presidential election next April.
An informal ruling party pact stipulates that power within the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) should rotate between the north and south of the country every two terms. Mr Jonathan is a southerner. – (Reuters)