The death toll from violence in Nigeria has risen to at least 41 following a series of bomb blasts, attacks on churches and reprisals, police said yesterday, as soldiers patrolled to prevent further unrest.
A number of houses were also burned when clashes broke out on Sunday in the wake of Christmas Eve bomb blasts in the central city of Jos that killed dozens, state police commissioner Abdulrahman Akano said.
However, he denied a community leader’s claim that 14 bodies had been recovered following Sunday’s clashes. The community leader also said 23 houses were found burned along with a church and a mosque.
Photo: REUTERS
Mohammed Shittu, a leader in the Hausa Muslim community in Jos who headed a search and rescue team, said 14 bodies were recovered and 23 houses were burned following Sunday’s clashes. He said another 33 people were wounded.
A mass burial was being prepared for the victims, he said.
Christian leaders in the area could not immediately provide numbers of victims.
PHOTO: REUTERS
The unrest has come at a difficult time for Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan, who is running a controversial campaign ahead of the ruling party’s primaries on Jan. 13.
A ruling party pact says that power within the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) should rotate between the mostly Muslim north and largely Christian south every two terms.
CONDEMNATION
In Rome, Pope Benedict condemned Christmas Day attacks on two Christian churches in northeast Nigeria and Italy’s foreign ministry said it would summon the Nigerian ambassador shortly to express its concern. Italy often backs the Vatican’s concern over religious violence against Catholics and other Christians.
Jonathan is a southerner who inherited office when former Nigerian president Umaru Yar’Adua, a northerner, died during his first term this year and some northern factions in the ruling party are opposed to his candidacy.
Jonathan faces a challenge from former vice president Atiku Abubakar for the ruling party nomination and some fear any unrest in Africa’s most populous nation will be exploited by rivals during campaigning.
The governor of Plateau State has said the bombings were politically motivated terrorism, aimed at pitting Christians against Muslims to start another round of violence.
Christians, Muslims and animists from a patchwork of ethnic groups live peacefully side by side in most Nigerian cities, but hundreds of people died in religious and ethnic clashes at the start of the year in the central Middle Belt and there are fears politicians could try to stoke such rivalries as the elections approach.
The tensions are rooted in decades of resentment between indigenous groups, mostly Christian or animist, who are vying for control of fertile farmlands, and for economic and political power with mostly Muslim migrants and settlers from the north.
CONDOLENCES
The African Union on Saturday released a statement condemning the Christmas Eve bombings and offered its condolences to the families of those who have died.
“[The union] reaffirms the determination of the African Union to combat terrorism and to continue to support the efforts being deployed by member states in this respect,” a statement from chairman Jean Ping said.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion