Mosques burnt in revenge
2006-02-21 21:04
Lagos - Nigerian Christians burnt two mosques in Nigeria's south-eastern Onitsha on Tuesday in a revenge attack for religious violence which has claimed 34 lives in the Muslim-dominated north.
Tuesday's clashes took place in Onitsha, the capital of the overwhelmingly Christian state of Anambra, which is home to Nigeria's ethnic Igbo group who attacked the Hausas, a Muslim race based in northern Nigeria.
Anambra state police spokesperson Kolapo Shofoluwe said: "There was a scuffle between the ethnic Hausa and Ibo communities in Onitsha.
"Two mosques were burnt and police deployed to Onitsha have managed to restore peace to the city."
A journalist with the Nigerian news agency, NAN, reported that witnesses had told him the riot was sparked off after a bus arrived from northern Nigeria bearing the corpses of Christian Igbos.
Bloodiest protests so far
They had died in weekend religious violence after demonstrations against cartoons featuring Prophet Muhammad.
In two Muslim-dominated northern cities, 24 people have died in the bloodiest protests the world has so far seen involving the cartoons, first published in a Danish newspaper and then reproduced elsewhere in Europe.
The same journalist quoted witnesses as claiming that Tuesday's violence had claimed five lives, but police could not confirm any casualties.
He said shops belonging to Muslim northerners had been looted or burnt by irate protestors.
Nigeria, Africa's most-populous country with 130 million people, is divided roughly equally between Muslims and Christians of a variety of sects and denominations.
Northern Nigeria is overwhelmingly Muslim, and is fast becoming a hotbed of religious clashes.