Thousands of Christians have fled the suburbs of the northern Nigerian city of Kano to seek police protection after coming under attack from Muslim mobs, an AFP reporter saw on Wednesday.
Also, security was tightened on Wednesday in many parts of Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital, amid fears that the fighting between Muslims and Christians could spread south.
At least 5 000 refugees, mainly from the Sharada industrial district of Kano, had gathered or been brought under escort to Kano state’s main police headquarters, many with nothing but the clothes on their backs.
”Many people have been killed in Sharada, but we have not been able to bring out their bodies, because we had to look to our own lives,” said 37-year-old foundry worker Joshua Adamu.
Nearby, middle-aged battery seller Rosemary Ime broke down in hysterical tears as neighbours arrived with news that her husband, four children and four more relatives were burned alive in her home overnight.
Police spokesperson Mohammed Baba said it was impossible to calculate how many casualties there have been.
”We’ve requested more troops from neighbouring states to contain the situation,” he said.
Violence erupted late on Tuesday when Muslim youths went on the rampage in protest at a massacre on May 2, when a Christian ethnic militia attacked a Muslim town in central Nigeria and killed more than 200 people.
Police and troops have been able to restore order in Kano city centre and protect the main central Christian ghetto. But on Wednesday trouble spread to several outlying districts where pockets of Christians live.
Smoke could be seen rising from the embattled suburbs, but police and soldiers prevented journalists from approaching the areas.
”Yesterday [Tuesday] our area was attacked by these thugs and we had to take refuge in the police station,” said 40-year-old Helen James.
”My husband and his brother have been badly hurt, they have so many knife wounds in their back. They have been taken to the hospital. We don’t know whether they are dead or alive,” she wept.
”All our housing estate was totally burned, we’ve nothing left.”
Around her, women who had managed to salvage food and cooking utensils and food were trying to prepare meals for their families, but buses and trucks were arriving by the minute with more terrified residents.
”When the trouble began our Muslim neighbours harboured me in their house, and in the night they took me to the police station for safety. This morning I managed to come here,” said 32-year-old Florence Noah.
Her house was burned down and her brothers had to cut a hole in the roof to escape, she said.
Tight security in Lagos
In Lagos, police spokesperson Emmanuel Ighodalo said: ”We are certainly security-conscious. We know we have a large Hausa population in Lagos. So we have to be vigilant.”
”There should not be in Lagos a spillover effect of what has happened in Yelwa and Kano,” he added.
Dozens of armed soldiers and riot policemen were maintaining security at key junctions and around potential flashpoints in the northern districts of Lagos, sub-Saharan Africa’s biggest city with a population of about 16-million.
Hundreds of people died in 2000 and 2001 during clashes between ethnic Hausas, who are Muslims from northern Nigeria, and the Yoruba, who are divided roughly half-in-half between Muslims and Christians.
Ighodalo said that part of the reason for the security build-up in Lagos was a visit by Nigeria’s President Olusegun Obasanjo.
”The president is here with us in Lagos and we have to secure his life and those of his entourage,” he said. — Sapa-AFP