10 dead in land skirmishes
2006-04-13 17:03
Jos - Several people have been killed in three days of skirmishes between two Nigerian tribes, fighting about ownership of land in the country's central state of Plateau.
Details of the clashes around the market town of Namu, 100km east of the capital Abuja, were sketchy and Nigeria's Plateau state police did not specify the number of dead.
Plateau state police commissioner Richard Chime said: "Skirmishes started on Monday, but security has been reinforced and the place is now quiet."
Namu is 40km from Yelwa, a larger market town where hundreds of people were killed in similar skirmishes, which also began as a tribal dispute over land, in 2004.
The Yelwa killings inflamed rivalry between Christians and Muslims and sparked religious violence hundreds of miles away in the northern city of Kano.
A source in the country's emergency services said 10 people had been killed, 35 injured, and 750 displaced in the latest clashes
A dusk-to-dawn curfew was imposed on two local government areas around Namu, which is claimed by the Pan and Gomai tribes.