The killings brought the death toll from five days of religious riots in Africa’s most populous country to at least 76, and possibly many more.
ONITSHA: At least 20 people, mostly Muslims, were killed in the southeastern Nigerian city of Onitsha on Wednesday by Christians taking revenge for the killing of Christians in northern Nigeria at the weekend. The killings brought the death toll from five days of religious riots in Africa’s most populous country to at least 76, and possibly many more.
“There are thousands of boys with cutlasses and sticks on the rampage. I’ve counted at least 20 bodies here by the Onitsha bridge. They are Hausas. Some of them are burnt and some have their stomachs cut open,” said a Reuters photographer. The Hausa are the main ethnic group in predominantly Muslim northern Nigeria, while Onitsha is located in the ethnic Ibo heartland, a mainly Christian region.
Sectarian violence first erupted Saturday in the northern city of Maiduguri, where Muslim protests against cartoons caricaturing the Prophet Muhammad turned violent, razing 30 churches and claiming the lives of 18 people, mostly Christians. Similar violence followed on Monday and Tuesday in the northern city of Bauchi, where witnesses and Red Cross officials say 25 people were killed when Muslim mobs attacked Christians there. Bauchi was tense but calm on Wednesday, with police and soldiers patrolling the city.
In Onitsha, residents and witnesses said two mosques were burned down and least 30 people were killed on Tuesday, most of them northern Muslims. Several local newspapers reported between 30 and 35 dead. Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country of more than 140 million people, is roughly divided between a predominantly Muslim north and a mainly Christian south.
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