Emergency Nigeria meeting held

2004-05-05 18:04

Kano - State governors from Nigeria's Muslim-dominated northern regions on Tuesday began an emergency meeting over the unrest in the town of Yelwa in which more than 200 Muslims were killed and 120 missing, state-run Radio Nigeria Kaduna reported.

Abdulkadir Orire, secretary general of Nigeria's main Muslim representative body the Jama'atu Nasril Islam, said between 200 and 250 people were killed after Christian militia attacked the central Nigerian town.

The police said that they have recovered 67 corpses from the scene of the clashes which began late on Sunday.

The meeting of the northern state governors began on Tuesday in northern Kaduna city, said the radio which did not give further details on participation in and duration of the talks.

Yelwa is a town in Plateau State, one of the states belonging to the 19 northern state governors' forum.

"Between 200 and 250 people were killed in the violence, while many have disappeared," Orire said.

"Those who disappeared cannot be accounted for, nobody knows if they are dead or in hiding. 120 people, including women and children, are missing," he said, citing the testimony of refugees fleeing the flashpoint region.

President Olusegun Obasanjo has sent 600 heavily armed police reinforcements to the troubled area to restore order while state authorities on Wednesday imposed an indefinite dusk-to-dawn curfew.

A communique is expected to be issued at the end of the governors' meeting.

- AFP