ONITSHA, Nigeria, February 26, 2006 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – At least 80 people, mainly Muslims, were killed by Christian mobs in violence in the southeastern Nigerian city of Onitsha, a prominent rights group said on Thursday, February 23. "We counted 60 bodies on Tuesday and 20 on Wednesday and there could be more," Emeka Umeh, head of the local chapter of the Lagos-based Civil Liberties Organization (CLO), told Agence France-Presse (AFP). He confirmed that "most of the victims are Muslims." Umeh described what happened as "a great massacre that should be condemned by any right-thinking person." The human rights activist said bodies "littered the streets in Onitsha" and can still be found on Upper Iweka road in the city, which is home to the predominantly Christian Igbo people. Trouble flared in Onitsha earlier this week when, according to rumors on the street, two truckloads of corpses of Igbos slain by Muslim rioters in weekend sectarian violence in the north arrived in town. Christians targeted the sizeable Hausa community, the main ethnic group in northern Nigeria who are mostly Muslims. Nigerian Muslims strongly condemned on Monday, February 20, attacks on churches and local Christians in northern Nigerian during protests against Danish cartoons mocking Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessing be upon him). At least 15 people were killed and a dozen churches, 200 shops, 50 houses and 100 vehicles were razed and vandalized when Muslims protesters in Maiduguri, the capital of the state of Borno, turned on local Christians after police broke up a rally against the drawings on Saturday, February 19. Slaughtered Umeh said the victims had been slaughtered "with machetes, knives, metal objects, clubs and in some instance, even guns." He added that two policemen were among the victims, believing they had died "while trying to save the lives of the Muslims." The activist said the relative calm in Onitsha was deceptive. "The police should not relax. What we have now is graveyard peace," he maintained. Thousands of Muslims fled Onitsha over the Niger River Bridge to neighboring Asaba to seek shelter in police stations and hospitals. Some of them said a machete-wielding mob descended on the market and began to kill. Burned Christians burned the corpses of Muslims Thursday on the streets of Onitsha, according to Reuters. "We are very happy that this thing is happening so that the north will learn their lesson," said Anthony Umai, a motorcycle taxi rider, standing close to where Christian youths had piled up the corpses of 10 Muslims and were burning them. Dozens more corpses had been thrown into the back of pick-up trucks by security services overnight, residents said. The city's central mosque was also burnt down, with religious and political slogans daubed on its inner walls, according to AFP. Nigeria’s recent census shows that Muslims make up 55 percent of the country’s 133 million, Christians 40 percent and five percent atheists. However, other estimates indicated that Muslims make up some 65 percent of the country. http://www.islamonline.net/English/News/2006-02/23/article06.shtml How depressing that like begets like.
Oh my gawd ! This is getting well out of control, don't people realize it is just a belief? WOW, very sad. DD
Civilization isn't really that evolved is it? We'll all pick up a jawbone without much provocation. I'll be in the bunker, wake me when the religious wars are over and tell me who won.
sadly it has been out of control in nigeria for decades now. this news is nothing new there. nigeria is a very fractured country and the christians and muslims have been fighting for awhile.
Now the Muslims will respond back and more will die. %$#$%^ this global religious hate has got to stop but I fear this will get worse before it gets better. People who promote religious stereotypes and hatreds are part of the problem regardless of country or beliefs.
Makes you just want to drop one big bomb on some of these rallies to make a point. Yes, yes, I know you can't do that......but still. Gather all the zealots and idiots in one place, and then nuke em......that would fix a lot of problems...... Well until more zealots that were relatives of these people gathered. DD
As long as there are people on both sides who're rooting for this (and yes, there are plenty of people, you can see that as clear as day just by talking to various people, reading this forum, the news, etc.), then the realization of more and more conflicts will take place. As for Nigeria, they have had previous ethnic violence so it's nothing new here, these reprisal attacks have been going on for years, although sporadic and things haven't quiet developed into a full-blown civil war just yet, but sometimes I wonder if it's only a matter of time; the Yugoslavia example comes to mind.
Let's hope it never gets to that...I don't mean to make light of what happened in Yuogslavia, but Nigeria is a country with a huge population and it would be Yugoslavia multiplied ten times over.
I'm not surprised that "those people" are absent from this thread. Unfortunetly, this will be a forgotten continent until we need their resources.
It is a mistake to chalk this up to religion. This was African tribal retaliation, Igbos killing Hausa, much more like the Rwanda situation than any religious warfare. You can tell just from what the cab driver said, that those in the north would learn a lesson, not Muslims. No part of this event had any religious tone to it, it just happens that the Igbos are mostly Christian, and the predominantly Muslim Hausa killed a group of them earlier (in what actually was at least patially a religious incident) which resulted in an Igbo revenge killing of Hausa.
I agree it's mostly ethnic rivals going at it, but as is often the case, religion is often used as a rallying force to unite against a common enemy. Usually the two overlap in today's world.
"where is the christians protesting this in the streets of DC?" obviously sarcasm, but just a lil bit of the same type of reply's towards muslims.
DC is too dangerous, too many dealers with guns, we had a protest on our street here in Austin, lots of beer, fajitas and the kids watched the movie Shrek, it was very moving. DD
Well, at least so far I didnt see any Christians joyfully dancing in the street in the rest of the world.
