Soldiers opened fire on a crowd after curfew and killed two people, witnesses said yesterday, just days after fighting between Christians and Muslims in the area left more than 200 dead including dozens of children.
Hundreds of people swarmed the streets of Jos yesterday morning, where one truck’s windshield was a spider web of bullet holes with the word “rejoice” scrawled on it.
Residents had tried to stop the truck on Tuesday from entering the town after curfew, fearing it was carrying fighters or weapons. They have accused police and military of failing to provide security to the villages that were attacked on Sunday morning.
FIVE WOUNDED
The military later arrived, asked the youth to leave, and then opened fire on them and the truck. Two were killed and five others were wounded, said Angela Ogobri, a nurse from a local hospital.
An Army colonel prevented reporters from seeing the dead. The truck was later found to be carrying only cattle and baskets.
Speaking from her house in Bukka Uku, a resident said soldiers fired into the air to disperse crowds of mainly Christian youths who gathered after the arrest of a Muslim Fulani man in the neighborhood.
“Because of the tension and anxiety in the area, we took it for a gunfight and left our homes for the police barracks,” said Josephine Emmanuel, a resident of Bukka Uku.
Residents said soldiers remained on the streets of Jos.
Jonah Jang, governor of Plateau state, said security lapses had worsened the massacre carnage.
Some survivors of Sunday’s massacre told of the attacks as they recovered. In a surgical ward of Jos hospital, women with deep scalp wounds mourned the loss of their children.
Chindum Yakubu, a 30-year-old mother of four, described the screams of her 18-month-old daughter who was plucked from her back and hacked to death as the family tried to flee the pre-dawn attacks.
“They removed the baby and killed her with the machete,” Yakubu said.
International observers have called on the government to take action over the tensions.
‘TERRORISM’
The Nigerian senate described the attacks as acts of “terrorism” and crimes against humanity.
The main opposition Action Congress, however, accused the government of “hypocrisy,” saying perpetrators of the violence in recent years had not been brought to justice.
Archbishop John Olorunfemi Onaiyekan of Abuja has objected to descriptions of a conflict between Christians and Muslims.
“This is a classic conflict between herdsmen and farmers, only the Fulani are all Muslims and the Berom all Christians,” he told Vatican Radio.
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