Ongoing Religious Riots Plague Country

February 24, 2006

Source: BBC News

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/4749534.stm

On February 24, 2006 BBC News reported, "Violence is continuing across Nigeria where religious riots have claimed more than 100 lives this week. A number of deaths were reported and churches and shops burned on Friday in the towns of Kontagora and Potiskum in the north and Enugu in the south-east. Some 10,000 people are still sheltering in barracks in the south-east town of Onitsha after violence there killed 80. Nigeria's 120m people are about equally divided between northern Muslims, and Christians and animists in the south. The violence began last weekend with demonstrations by Muslims in the north against cartoons satirising the Prophet Muhammad. More than 30 Christians were killed in riots in two mainly Muslim towns. More than 80 people were then killed in Onitsha in two days of reprisal attacks by crowds of Christians armed with machetes."