Uneasy calm returned to the Nigerian market city of Onitsha on Thursday after almost a week of violence that claimed at least seven lives and left more than 200 prisoners freed, police said.
”Our men are on top of the situation. There is calm everywhere now. But the curfew imposed by the Anambra State government is still in force,” state police spokesperson Fidelis Agbo told Agence France-Presse.
He said the police were yet to determine the cause of the mayhem, which started on Friday in the bustling market city, home to the ethnic Igbo of south-east Nigeria.
”We cannot say how many people have been arrested so far. The immediate concern is to ensure that peace returns to the town and we have achieved that,” he said.
Agbo said troops were still patrolling the city to prevent a resurgence of violence, allegedly perpetrated by members of the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (Massob).
Massob seeks independence for the 40-million-strong Igbo, Nigeria’s third-largest ethnic group, accusing the rest of the West African country of neglect and marginalisation because of a brutal civil war the region fought with federal forces between 1967 and 1970.
That war which was crushed by the Nigerian government, claimed about one-million lives, most of whom died through hunger and disease. — AFP
