18 000 flee clashes in Jos

2010-01-22 11:57

Geneva - About 18 000 people have fled fighting between Christian and Muslim youths in the northern Nigerian city of Jos, the international Red Cross said on Thursday.

The International Committee of the Red Cross put the death toll in four days of clashes at "at least 160" but local Christian and Muslim leaders as well as paramedics pointed to a toll of around 300.

It said it had joined its Nigerian counterparts to tend the wounded and displaced as well as some 290 people held at local police headquarters.

"During the violent clashes and their aftermath, Nigerian Red Cross teams administered first aid to over 250 people with machete and gunshot wounds, bruises or fractures, and evacuated 150 casualties to nearby hospitals," said Umar Mairiga, a Nigerian Red Cross disaster management director.

"So far about 18 000 people have been displaced from their homes by the clashes," the statement said. People have been sheltering in churches, mosques and makeshift camps since the violence began on Sunday.

Red Cross workers were also searching for children and elderly people separated from their families.

Gun and machete-wielding gangs went on the rampage from Sunday after a dispute broke out over plans to build a mosque in a majority Christian area of the mixed-faith city. But leaders of both communities said ethnic, rather than religious, tensions were to blame.

Residents said the violence eased on Wednesday night after troop reinforcements deployed to enforce a curfew.

- SAPA